


+2

by uumiho



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation, Sexual Content, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 09:32:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4516788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumiho/pseuds/uumiho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a mutant-blooded prophet with an entire planet to educate isn't especially easy. Maintaining a polyamorous relationship isn't easy, either, and between the two, some things fall through the cracks. </p><p>A family of rebels stays at an oceanside city and experiences no less than three quadrant vacillations, two exhibitionist sexual encounters, one overly friendly seadweller, and an undead infestation that will not be appearing in the main narrative.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we walk down the line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misterinkwell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misterinkwell/gifts).



The oceanside city of Lapirria has changed a lot since their last visit. A sweep ago it was fraught with deception, overrun by subjuggulators, and on the verge of imminent collapse. Once a pivotal staple of Alternia's vast economy, its formerly profitable businesses were closing their hiveportals, merchants evacuating in fear of the high mugging and crime rates. Subjuggulators and their mind tricks stirred the tensions between the wealthy landdwellers and the visiting seadwellers, triggering violent outbreaks within the mixed population's delicate social balance.

It was a wasteland, and then Signless bartered some gifted jewellery for a ship and stayed long enough to defuse a riot, distract a high-ranking member of the MirthfulChurch, and sleep with a violetblood prince.

“That mutht have been thome good head,” Psii mutters when they dock, mismatched eyes blown wide at the high coral spire rising above the rebuilt city. He sparks ineffectually when the refined Dolorosa flicks him in the ear.

“Hush.”

Signless is already off the ship, swinging down with Disciple at his heels and barely stumbling at all when he hits the dry land, smiling as he's enveloped in the blossoming crowd. Psiionic recognizes a shopkeep at the front of the growing throng, remembers Signless' palms held out as he threw himself between a flaming torch and the stall full of handmade instruments and weaponry. He remembers the burns on Signless' fingers, as well, and the older brownblood's gentle hands when he'd invited them into his hive for safety and healing. The brownblood wraps wiry arms around Signless' broad shoulders and Psiionic rolls his eyes, repressing another comment because he knows a secondary infraction will escalate Rosa into a smack. “It'th embarratthing,” he says.

“He does good work,” Dolorosa responds, waiting for the gangway to be lowered so she can join her grub and his mate. Psiionic crackles and goes back below deck until Di notices his absence and smokes him out.

There's a party. Sometimes Psiionic loves parties. Sometimes he hates them, and this is one of those nights. He scowling in a corner, glowing irritably while Signless flickers from familiar face to unfamiliar face, sharing and laughing and dancing with anyone who asks. Di and Rosa shadow him, the former on the ratty end of his cloak and the latter sipping a sour-smelling tea and observing from a respectful distance. She takes her eyes away from Signless long enough to smack Psiionic on the horns and tell him to stop sulking, and then he sees someone slip their hands under the redblood's cloak and his honourable mother seems to phase out of the crowd.

Probably doing a background check and sharpening her hacksaw, if Psii knows her worth anything.

He loses sight of Signless in the crowd and his eyes flicker to life, horns buzzing with nervous energy when thick fingers close around his wrist.

“Gracious!” Claws dig into the lower half of his split earlobe, yanking. “Don't do that, that hurts.” Disciple's reprimand is warm and not at all angry and he bets she didn't even feel the startled sparks through the rough calluses on her palms. Palms wide and strong when they rub the back of his neck, easing him closer so she can nuzzle his jaw. “Rosa found a rent-hive for the day,” she says.

“We're thitting in a thity where anyone who'th anyone wantth to thuck SL's bulge and we're _paying_ for our pileth?”

Disciple rolls her eyes skyward. “Wellllll, about that.” Psii groans through his knuckles. “Do you remember the—”

“Brownblood merchant?”

“No, not him. The teal with the prosthetic leg.”

Psii thinks, then shrugs. “I atthume she was relevant at thome point.”

“Relevant enough to invite Signless into her pile in front of his matesprit,” Di laughs.

“And live to tell the tale?”

Shrugging, Di curls up into his side. “I like it when he has fun.”

Psii snorts, “I'll bet you do,” and she tickles him until he falls over, hissing and flashing in between choked bursts of laughter. After letting up, she gives him the key and directions to the rent-hive and says she's going to wait up for Signless, so in best interest of the headache forming slightly closer to the right set of horns than the left, Psiionic leaves the festivities on his lonesome.

He runs into Rosa on her way out; she pats him between the horns right where the headache is starting and says she has business and will be back later.

A fat infogrub glows and buzzes in the corner of the block, and the threadbare curtains let too much light in, and there's a weird draft that he can't seem to block off, and the pile is too soft for his liking. The sun is up when the hiveportal opens and someone slides in. They don't wake him, because he wasn't asleep. What he wouldn't give for some watery, overused sopor slime right now. It seems like in a port this big there should be more low cost rent-hives with recuperacoons, but sopor remains an unnecessary expense for their nomadic lifestyle, and so he settles into his overly squishy pile and peers through the overly bright room at the single body pulling off clothes.

“Di? Where'th SL.”

Cat-slit eyes squint at him from under the hem of her dress. “Staying the day, apparently.” He expects her to sound irritated, but she doesn't. Instead, she hums as she walks naked over to the window and starts jamming pieces of clothing into the window slots without lifting the useless curtain. “Is Rosa still out?”

“Yeth.” Di flops into the pile next to him, her thick body vibrating with a strong purr. “Ugh,” Psii grunts. “You again.”

She giggles, pushing herself up onto her elbows. “Shush!”

“Or what?” His eyes narrow. “You'll thuffocate me with your hair?”

“I might!”

“You can try.”

A wall of solid muscle tackles him backwards off the pile, but Psiionic's back barely hits the floor before ropes of psionic energy coil around flexing biceps, lifting her clean out of gravity's hold. He doesn't hold her quite hard enough to keep her from struggling, because that's half the fun, and also his pan is in no condition. Di growls, low in her chest; he can feel her flesh thrum through the psionics, watches the wide curves of her large thighs, stomach, and exposed spheres twist and roll as she squirms in the hold, and Psiionic decides he would rather have that flesh on him than off, so he gives her enough leeway to get a fist around his bodysuit, yanking him up. “Problem, Di?” he asks, inches away from her snarl.

She licks him on the cartilage nub between the eyes and nearly crushes him when he drops her.

“Grooooothh,” he whines.

“Maybe,” Di purrs. “Victory tastes almost as sweet as you.” Psii doesn't get off the floor, and she curves her cool bare skin against his side, not seeming to miss the pile any more than he.

His hand gets lost in her hair when he tries to stroke it and a horn is stabbing into the hollow of his cheek. His eyes drop from the ceiling and slide over her full hip and a second and a half of a rusty purr rolls around in his thoracic shell before he asks, “Doeth it really not bother you that he'th with thomeone elthe?”

Di blinks her eyes open, tilts her chin toward him. “It's not the first time,” she says. “I should ask you the same question. Doesn't it ruin your perfect symmetry?”

Psii snorts. “You two aren't thymmetry.”

“I'm insulted,” Di says, and then: “Are you upset?”

He takes a minute to think about it, and looks away when he does. “No,” Psii eventually admits. “Not ath long ath one of you ith thtill around.”

“So no hot threesomes without you, is what you're saying,” she says, folding her hands under her chin and grinning.

“Two more people and that'th an orgy and I don't thee why either of you would turn that opportunity down.” Di says something like ‘we’re not as perverted as you’ but he ignores it, nose scrunching. “Ith he even pailing or just prothelytizing?”

Disciple hums. “I’m… not sure, actually.”

“It can be hard to tell thometimeth,” Psii admits.

“He didn’t really specify.”

“It’th amathing how thorough he ith when dethcribing thocial inequality mid-courtship but he can’t be athhed to tell uth what he’th up to.”

Laughing, she says, “He’s entitled to his own privacy, you know. Heavens know he doesn’t get much of it.”

“I’m only thaying,” Psiionic continues, “for thomeone tho methodical he’th eathily dithtracted when he getth ecthited.”

Pulling herself up, Di brushes floor gunk from her side and then plucks Psiionic off the floor and tows him back toward the pile. It’s still soft and spongy and doesn’t offer any meaningful back support, especially not under the weight of two bodies, but Disciple settles herself down first and pulls him on top of her, so he holds off on complaints. They can easily be saved for later. “You know,” Di says, “it’s important for him to be able to socialize like this. It strengthens their trust in him. It’s not often such a large population responds so positively to his presence and ideas. He shouldn’t have to hide himself.” There’s a quiet conviction in her voice, and Psiionic pats her naked skin with a leathery hand.

“This could be huge for him,” Disciple continues. “He’s already gained favour with the seadwellers along the shore, and the higher bloods like him for saving their businesses.”

“Getting rid of the infethtation of freakish athhclowns probably helped, too.”

“I’m still not sure how he managed that,” she says.

“He doeth good work,” Psiionic responds, quoting Rosa from earlier in the night. He wants to challenge Di’s investment in highblood support and what it means for the movement, but he’s too tired to debate. Signless embraces everyone. Psiionic holds a very platonic distaste for some of the people Signless would kindly welcome at his table, and Di… supports him. Her more personal thoughts are fairly mysterious, and Psii is too achey to prod at her about them today. “But he altho getth caught pretty caught up in it, too.”

Di shifts beneath him, unzipping the side of his bodysuit so she can wiggle a hand in to rub at his skin. “Hasn’t he earned a break?”

“Do you call ‘conthtant fucking and/or preaching’ a break?”

There’s silence, and then Di pinches him under the grubscar. “I think you’re jealous,” she teases.

“Of that hyperactive nook dribble? Not a chanthe. I’m jutht objective enough to know that he’th gonna be going at two hundred perthent nonthtop until we leave.”

“So?”

“So,” Psii parrots, “Fancy thleeping alone every day the next perigee?”

The pause grows longer, and then Disciple snorts. “Impossible,” she says. “I’ve got you.” And then she flips him off the pile again, pressing him against the floor. He doesn’t lift her off this time, blinking bright eyes at her from below. She’s quiet when she says, “The work he does is important.”

“Of courthe it ith,” Psii responds, strangely gentle. He touches her face, and she leans into his hand. The moment gets a little too sweet for him, so he bares his crooked fangs in a lopsided grin and continues, “but ten caegarth thayth he’ll get _too_ caught up in it and then _you’ll_ be the jealouth one.”

“I don’t get jealous,” says Di.

“Are you thure?” Psii challenges. “How long do you think you can go without hith attention?”

“If I called he’d come running,” she says, nipping at his exposed shoulder.

It might be the headache, or the smell of her sweat, or the fat fucking infogrub still fizzling in the corner, but Psiionic gets a wicked idea and it claws out of his chitinous windtunnel before he has a chance to reconsider its advisability. “And what if you don’t call?” Di blinks, because she is straightforward and honest and has no trouble physically removing Signless from a situation she doesn’t want him to be in, has even less trouble justifying dragging him off to pail in the woods should she so desire his company. “What if you just thent out the thignalth and waited for him to be theduthed?”

“And why would I do that?”

Psii shrugs. “For fun? You’ve got to keep yourthelf amused while he’th running around thomehow.”

“I have a job to do as well,” she reminds him.

“After-hourth,” Psii says, rolling his eyes. “After the thermons when it’th jutht prothethhing time.”

“You want me to distract him?”  
  
“I want you to thee if he _can_ be dithtracted.”

Smacking him lightly in the pectoral, Di chirps, “And what about you, bee-butt? Are you just going to watch and laugh?”

“Duh.”

“You should try, too,” she says.

Blinking up at her, he almost asks ‘what’ before he figures it out, and the confused sound he almost made turns into a dismissive snort. “He’ll ignore me until he needth a punching bag,” Psiionic says. Their black vacillations are fun. Signless needs to destress sometimes. When he’s feeling pale, he usually goes to Disciple first. Psii is around for the sex, but.

Two powerful thighs lock around his trim hips and Disciple’s eyes flash above him as she nips at his mouth. “Don’t talk about him like that, or yourself. He loves you deeply.”

“He loveth everyone deeply.”

“I’ll bet you’re just as distracting as I.”

“Competing with hot violet bulge? Nah,” dismisses Psii.

Di slaps him lightly on the cheek. “One decent seadweller is nothing compared to your loveable bony ass.”

“What athh,” he grumbles.

“This one,” she says, and gets two handfuls and squeezes, holding him down when he tries to writhe away. “Challenge me,” Di laughs, groping at all his angles and edges as he wriggles beneath her. “I’ll put down money on you being a more formidable opponent than you think.”

“I can’t dethide,” pants Psii, flicking her fingers away hopelessly, “if I’m lothing or gaining thomething here.”

“Can’t it be both?”

“I don’t think tho,” he answers, and she cackles, and she kisses him, and he stops arguing because it’s hard to do that with a rough, coaxing tongue in one’s mouth.

The sun is almost down again when the door opens and bare feet settle on the floor. They shuffle a couple meters into the block, then pause as their owner surveys the scene. “Why are you guys sleeping on the floor,” Signless asks.

Psiionic is… kind of clothed, in that his bodysuit is still clinging to his lower body, but it’s a little far down the hips and sticky in the thighs. He assesses the situation and determines he is, in fact, on the floor. Di grumbles at his side. “We fell,” he lies. Signless snorts.

“More room for me,” he says, and flops facefirst into the pile. In the back of his pan, Psii remembers that he agreed at some point to participate in seducing Signless out of his ridiculous leggings before Disciple can, while competing with an entire city of excited would-be followers, but his reality is limned with exhaustion, and his head doesn’t appear willing to lift off the ground.

“Good morning, moonshine,” Psiionic tells his friend, tongue heavy and tone sarcastic as he clings to said friend’s mate. She doesn’t wake up and leave him, so he considers that a win.

“Fuck off,” mumbles Signless, but his foot slides off the pile and he hooks his ankle over the tangle of Psii’s and Di’s, and Psiionic’s last thought is that maybe it won’t be so hard to get his attention after all.

* * *

Or not.

Di wakes up before everyone. Di plunges into the ocean like a beast and harvests some huge waterbear with her bare hands, and brings it back to the rent-hive to prepare it, except the receptionihilist won’t let her bring it inside, so she skins it behind the building because in the front she was getting weird looks.

“How did you carry it alone,” Psiionic asks.

“Don’t question me,” Disciple responds.

Signless blinks and says, “Why? We don’t need to hunt here.” Psiionic and Disciple exchange looks, and Disciple says ‘um,’ and then someone calls Signless’ name and he turns away. “I’m heading a gathering at four,” he says, and kisses Di on the cheek, and elbows Psii in the side, and disappears in time to avoid an awkward greeting from the Dolorosa when she returns.

“Why did you kill that?” she asks. Disciple sighs.

Psiionic makes so many dirty jokes before the sermon that Signless turns red in the face and sends him away. “We thuck at theduction,” says Psii.

“No,” says Di. “We’re just warming up.”

* * *

Signless wakes up the next night to find the floor scattered with coloured papers. “Did you sleep?” he asks Disciple.

“At some point,” she says, not entirely sure if that’s true or not. She’s focusing on painting the final touch onto her most recent drawing. Psii is asleep, long limbs sprawled out on their shared pile, and Dolorosa is… somewhere. Running a hand through his mussed curls, Signless bends down to grab his leggings. He’s maneuvering them over his legs, eyes bleary and half squinted, when his foot settles on the corner of a drawing. “Sorry,” he says, letting the garment sag at his thighs as he picks the paper off the floor. His hand pauses halfway up. “Um, Di?”

Straightening his back, he twists his mouth at the lovingly sketched and rendered image on the rough yellow paper, which appears to be a close-up of a suspiciously red extended bulge and swollen nook, displayed by spread grey thighs spackled with dots of green paint. From anyone else it might have been convenient happenstance, but Signless knows what his own bulge looks like. “You were having more fun than I thought.”

Di lets out a purring chuckle, spinning on the chair to face him and throwing one muscular leg over the other. “I was inspired. You’re cute when you’re asleep.” Her voice is low enough to not wake Psiionic, filled with rolling Rs and raspy edges. She folds her arms under her uncovered spheres, getting paint on her shoulder with the brush still clutched in her hand. “Do you like it?”

Signless picks up another, inspecting it thoughtfully. The full, round shapes and inky snarls of wild hair are easily familiar as Di’s, and he hums approvingly, before narrowing his eyes at the figure she’s hunched over, her hands at their hips as she takes them from behind. The thighs look too thin to be his own. “... Is this Psii?”

For a second her eyes dart down, then back up. “Why shouldn’t it be?”

“No reason at all. You two are a lovely sight on your own and even more so together. Come here?” He sets the pictures aside, arms opening in invitation. Di melts out of the chair and into his embrace, hunching her shoulders so she can fit her head under his chin. He huffs a laugh, because she’s taller than him and the position is awkward, but Signless folds around her as best he can and rubs the bristles of his patchy beard against her coarse hair. “If this is what you’re doing to keep busy, I have to wonder if I’ve been neglecting you.”

“You’re busy too,” she quips, kissing his neck. “But mostly, I was buying new ink and the paints were on sale.”

He chuckles, warm and soft; it vibrates in his throat, compelling Di to chase it with her teeth. “It’s been a while since you’ve had time for painting, hasn’t it.” She hums a response, too busy chewing on his neck to formulate proper words. Signless shivers, laughs more, fists his fingers in the hair right at the base of her skull, where it’s softest. “It’s been a while since other things, too,” he suggests, massaging her scalp with clumsy-but-well-intentioned fingers, and would that Psii was awake to witness her victory in that moment.

A peal of delight takes over her mouth; pulling back, Di’s eyes are wicked and bright, hands easing down his toned back to bury underneath the still-unfastened leggings, curling to fit his glutes. She’s drawn many-a-tribute to this ass in her day, but none quite manage to live up to the real thing. Squeezing indulgently, she hedges a fake protest: “The noise might wake Psii.” It loses its effect when she starts edging him backwards toward the table.

Signless goes willingly, face as close to hers as he can get it without them bumping foreheads. “If we let him join he won’t complain.”

“He gets cranky when his sleep is interrupted,” Di snickers, her hips finally meeting the platform’s edge.

“His loss,” shrugs Signless, lips curled as he finally dips in to flutter a kiss against the corner of her mouth. Taking no prisoners, Di removes a hand from his behind and fists it around his horn and holds him still so she can catch his bottom lip, tug it between her teeth, lick into his opened mouth.

When they break away—splitting their shared breath; the chain of slow, deep kisses—they’re warmer than the humid air of a beachside first autumn, hot like sand in light season. Both bodies thrum, rhythmic with combined purring; Signless’ a smooth, even rumble, Disciple’s a pulsing staccato. He tapers off even as the rumbling in her thoracic chamber grows wilder, erratic as she skates her teeth over his bare shoulder.

“How are you so wonderful?” Signless asks, lovingly rhetorical. Di works her mouth up his neck to his earlobe, flicking her rough tongue.

“I have you as an example,” she answers anyway, after much longer a pause than would be anticipated, long enough that Signless hums out a questioning sound before he remembers.

“If only everyone learned as well as you.”

Disciple mewls, teases, “You’d be out of a job.”

“Like I get paid.”

“Paid in gratitude,” she suggests, snickering and tugging his long, loose hair.

Signless snorts. “We’ll see,” he says, brushing a clump of thick bangs back from her eyes, giving him room to kiss her brow before he steps back, breaking contact. He starts fiddling with his leggings again, pulling them properly up on his hips and then doing up the fastenings over his chest. “At least the majority here are receptive,” he says, half to himself, “if the next hour’s plans are any indication.” Trapped up in his sudden fit of musing, he wanders off in search of the leather strap he uses to tie his hair back.

It keeps him from noticing how Di’s pupils thin when he breaks away, eyes widening as they follow him. When Signless finds what he’s looking for and turns back to smile at her, the expression is gone. “What's in an hour?” she asks, feigning calm.

“Just a thing,” he says, almost whispering as he bends down beside the still-sleeping Psii in order to retrieve his cloak.

Her arms wind around his waist, tucking up against his sternum so she can pull him close, exposed spheres pressing flush with his back. “What kind of thing?” she asks, hooking her chin over his shoulder.

“Ah,” Signless says, twisting to look at her. “It’s kind of.”

“Kind of what?” she trills, entreating.

His hands go to cover hers, tracing the bones along the back of one hand with a fingertip. “There are many trolls here, particularly those that have been in Lapirria the longest, who show its brutal history on their bodies. While I wouldn’t describe them as hostile, they’re… reclusive. Distrustful.”

“But you’re the reason they—”

“I know,” Signless says, patting her hand. “And I think, despite the fear, they’re learning that I’m not a threat to them. Like maybe they could trust me.”

Earlier frustration forgotten, Di squeezes him around the middle, nuzzling her temple to his cheek. “That’s amazing, Signless. You think they’re going to listen to you?”

“I’m taking it slow,” he explains. “I won’t be doing much talking today, in any case.”

Di prods at his side, nips his aural cartilage. “And what will you be doing?”

“Pushy,” he sighs, wiggling away from her claws.

“Persistent,” she corrects.

“They were very insistent that I not discuss it openly.” Di hears this and bumps her face against his, rubbing against the short, scratchy hair. Signless huffs and scratches her behind the horn, because good trolls do not keep secrets from their lifemates. “Apparently these are very old secrets, but. The disabled, injured, and elderly of the city have, for quite some time, organized in secret to develop healing and pain managing serums. Teas, balms; anything that’ll work, I suppose. The major concern is that some of the ingredients that prove most effective are banned from proper troll society and must be cultivated in secret, due to rumours that they can promote pigment change or even lead to longer lifespans in lowbloods.”

“Oooh,” Di squeals. “Contraband!” Whirling him around, she grabs his cheeks in her palms, squishing them. “And they asked you to meet with them?”

“Yes,” he answers, dark lips pursed comically, and raises his eyebrows at her until she relaxes her hands, if not removing them entirely. “They invited me to learn some of their practises.”

“Your work will be even more illegal than it already is! I’m so proud of you.” She kisses his nose for emphasis.

Signless laughs, rubbing behind his neck. “It’s a risk on top of other, equally great, risks.”

“But worthwhile,” Disciple notes. “You’ll be able to take this knowledge with you and use it to help others.”

Straightening up, he says, “That’s the plan. Wish me luck?” He shares a smile just for her, cheeks warming, eyes sparkling with fondness.

“I wish you’d leave already,” Psii grunts, flipping over in the pile, which they’d been standing next to, volume having ascended far past the earlier whispers.

Di muffles a snicker with her hand, releasing Signless so he can actually secure his cloak this time. Before coming back up, he makes sure to muss the hair between Psii’s horns thoroughly, pulling away only when met by sparks. “Aw, Psii,” he mocks with a grin, “You don’t have to make excuses. I know you love hearing me talk.”

“I’d love hearing you walk out the hiveportal even more, globethucker. Ethpecially if you never came back.” The words are muffled against the pile, and he has thusfar refused to open his eyes, still curled in on himself like a gangly wiggler puppet, overlong limbs jabbing out at indelicate angles.

Signless pins his cloak into place and kicks Psiionic with the side of his foot, barely hard enough to cause a disturbance, but the end of his cape goes flying up anyway, escorted by a flurry of flashing lights as it falls backwards over his horns, covering his face. Di is positively cackling, clutching her middle as she watches Signless struggle with the psionic energy keeping him from pulling the cloak to rights, shocking his hands when he tries.

When Signless nearly trips over a supply pack, hissing like a damp meowbeast, Disciple wipes mirthful tears from her eyes and drops her full weight on the pile, right over the spot where Psii is curled. Too distracted by haranguing Signless to have anticipated the aerial attack, Psiionic spits out a surprised curse, and then several more as he squirms to dislodge her, taking his attention of Signless long enough for the other man to free himself from the ruthless textile prison. “Can’t breathe,” Psii complains, giving in and going limp under Di’s body, settled primly on his back while she nurses one last burst of giggles.

“Serves you right,” says Signless, ruffled but smiling. “I have to go or else I’ll be late,” he informs them, slinging the pack across his back as he walks toward the exit. He slows before his hand hits the handle, throwing a gentle look over his shoulder. “Take care of each other.”

“Aye,” says Di, saluting. Psii groans like he’s dying. Signless beams brightly at them both and pads out of the block.

Once he’s well and gone, Disciple finally rolls off Psii’s back, flopping beside the sulking yellowblood. They stew in silence—her processing, him waking up—before he asks, “Tho, did you actually get to pail him, orrrrr…”

She slaps a hand over her face. “I was _so close!_ ”

“Apparently contraband tea is hotter than your bulge,” Psii comments, lifting up just enough to shove an untrimmed claw between his similarly overgrown teeth.

Di squeaks. “How long were you listening?”  
  
“Long enough,” he says with a nasally laugh. “Enough to know you had to athk ten timeth before he’d tell you about his illegal thoup party.” Psii catches her punch with a flash of blue and red, continuing, “Doeth it bother you that he’d rather thit around hearing wordth like ‘ointment’ inthtead of eating you out?”

“Does it bother you that I’m going to shove this whole pile up your wastechute?” She kicks out but he stops her foot too, looking quite pleased with himself as he lounges just inches away from her reach.

“Go ahead,” Psii encourages, fangs bared in a nasty leer. “It’th about ath good for thleep as your thmutty paintings are at theduction.”

“Better than _you_ purposefully tripping him only to fail terribly at smoothness while trying to catch him!”  
  
He sticks out his tongue. “He would have thanked me if that thorn bush hadn’t been there.”

“You—” Disciple thrashes, is displeased when it does nothing, and is more displeased when he watches in amusement instead of giving in and letting her go.

“Me,” he agrees. “I wouldn’t have let him thlip through my frondth when my bulge wath already half out, but I guethh he ithn’t ath thirthty for your globejuice ath you previouthly thought, particularly when your competition is learning to treat third degree burn thcarth.”

Trapped in space with no other option, Di swirls her tongue in her mouth and projects a large gob of saliva at his unsuspecting, unprotected face. It hits him in the ear with a wet _smack_. Shocked, and scrambling to wipe the cold spit from his aural canals, he releases her. “You’re fucking dithguthting, you uncivilithed beatht.”

“Don’t play in fire if you can’t handle the heat,” she sniffs.

“What heat,” he wonders, wiping his slimy palm on one of her spheres. “All I thee ith wiggler trickth from a dethperate cheater.”

“We’ll see who’s desperate,” Di challenges, elbowing him in the throat. “I almost had him. I’ll take this defeat and come back even stronger.”

“How can you come thtronger if you never actually came in the firtht place?” he sneers, allowing her to tackle him this time, hiding an escaped guffaw with play growls and kitten claws. They squirm around like bickering grubs and by the time Di has liberated the tight suit from his body the pile is in shambles around them.


	2. arm-in-arm through the clear night sky

“We have to go,” says Dolorosa. She hasn't been around much lately, so her voice makes Psiionic jump. That it comes out of nowhere doesn't help.

Her long swooping gown has been traded out for an outfit of thicker material, a collared, long green top and high waisted breeches, both cinched with a broad belt. Her hacksaw, normally hidden under her cloak, is strapped to the belt in broad sight. Despite looking fit to savage an entire forest, she remains her usual poised self.

“Are we killing thomeone?” Psii asks unhelpfully.

“No,” she says.

Disciple turns away from Psiionic's side. His attention shifts from the winding dark tattoos embracing Rosa's bare arms and resettles on Signless' expression. He looks ten seconds away from an actual crying tantrum, which has the dubious potential to be either awesome or horrible. “I thought we were staying until sixth perigee,” he says, a wobble in his voice. Di's fingers brush his temple, where he has some bright pink flowers woven into the thick curls. It's not entirely surprising that he's loath to leave off schedule. His knuckles brush her hip, but he doesn't seem to see her.

“Signless,” Dolorosa begins, but he interrupts.

“I'm not finished here,” he says, almost pleading, hands held outward in a broad gesture.

Rosa slips forward and curls her long fingers around his stocky ones. “Hush, little one.” It's too public, there on the edge of the market, for her to wrap him in her slender arms and press his curls under a gentle soothing palm, but she squeezes his hands before letting go. “We're coming back once everything has been taken care of.”

“After what's taken care of?”

She pats his cheek and then moves past him, cutting between Disciple and Psiionic with a touch to either of their shoulders. “I’ll explain when we’re out of the city. In the meanwhile, you all should fetch your things.”

Signless is a walking fidget all the way to the rendezvous point. He got saddled with holding two large jugs of purified water, which Rosa thoughtfully had delivered to the rent-hive before they left with their things. Disciple took Signless’ pack in spite of his protests that he was fine, he could carry it, he was _fine_ (at which point she bopped him on the nose and pried the straps out of his hand before he’d finished recoiling). Psiionic has just his own small collection of belongings, because he’s not as muscular as either of them and isn’t carrying anything more than he absolutely has to.

The distance from the rent-hive to the city’s edge is covered in tense silence, Psii tuning out the neural input of Signless’ depressed heel-dragging and Disciple fluttering around him, trying to soothe his anxiety without actually calling attention to it. She comments on things here and there but Signless responds very little, if at all, and Psiionic keeps his protein chute firmly closed.

Di warbles in thinly veiled distress when Dolorosa comes into view, already prepared and waiting for them. Signless pauses where he stands, surveying the jadeblood balefully. “Just get over it, you twice damned pupa,” Psii cuts in finally, jabbing a sharp elbow into his ribs. “She said we’re coming back. Thtop crying like your luthuth took away your favourite toy.”

“ _Psii,_ ” Di protests, exasperated, but Signless actually cocks his head in consideration, lips pursing.

“You’re right,” he eventually agrees. “I’m behaving inappropriately.”

“Damn thtraight,” Psii confirms, folding his arms and nodding. Signless squares his shoulders and picks up the pace as he goes to meet his lusus, leaving Psii and Di several paces behind.

She turns toward Psii with a pout. “I can’t believe you.”

“Thnapped him out of it, didn’t it,” Psii retorts, refusing to admit to any wrongdoing.

“You could have been nicer.”

“ _You_ could have been… lethh nithe.”

“He is _allowed_ to experience _feelings_ once in a while! It’s not fair to expect him to assume this, this,” Di waves her hands in the air, tone embellished, “apathetic and self-sacrificial attitude all the time. He’s not some idealistic inspirational symbol, he’s a _person_.”

“Yeth,” Psii agrees. “A perthon who wath acting like a wiggler.” Di slams him in the bilesac with Signless’ pack and walks away, leaving him doubled over in pain, but Psii knows he was right regardless. He’s okay with being the bigger man and not rubbing it in (mostly because Di would respond by rubbing his face in the dirt).

There’s much less soul-sucking tension when they convene with Dolorosa, who takes them a mile or so out before breaking from the road that leads to the next-nearest city and into an area more reminiscent of the desert than the outskirts of a vibrant oceanside settlement. She hasn’t said a word about their purpose yet, and it’s getting to irritate even Psiionic, who usually makes a patented habit of not giving a shit.

Signless obviously doesn’t want to ask, and Di’s thinking about it but concerned about it backfiring. Dolorosa isn’t volunteering anything more than the dry brambles scratching at their ankles when they step a little less than carefully, and so they don’t talk.

Psii gives it an hour. Okay, forty-five minutes. He really can’t handle another quarter hour of this.

“Tho,” he finally says. “What’th the plan, then?” He gets two relieved looks from his contemporaries, and neutral contemplation from Rosa. He does his best to look innocent, and probably fails, but whatever.

“About a sweep before our first visit to Lapirria, this area was heavy with growth and natural fauna,” she begins without breaking stride. “During the city’s corruption, much of the forest was exploited, ravaged, and ultimately destroyed.” They look around at the stumps and spindly saplings littering the sandy ground, put into context by her story. “The native species abandoned the area when their habitats were destroyed, so hunting was only possible in the water, or else food had to be imported and sold.”

Di nods sympathetically. “Losing a resource like that surely crippled many trolls’ means of living.”

“That it did. Since that time, attempts to revitalise the land and encourage the growth of new flora have been made.”

Picking up on her gist, Signless asks, “Why isn’t it working?”

At last, Dolorosa pauses, rubbing her wrists thoughtfully. “In the middle of such savagery, other things can be attracted. Things that are not quite so easy to destroy.” Disciple lets out a questioning chirp, adjusting the luggage slung over her back. “There’s a small colony of undead that have set down roots just north of here. They’re poisoning the earth and hampering regrowth.”

Psii’s vertebral column straightens into a tense line, eyes wide and bright. “We aren’t here to fight them, are we?” As a psionic he’s much more likely to keep the distance necessary to avoid infection, but Signless is hardly a fighter and Disciple’s greatest asset is her strength, which makes her useless considering tearing them limb from limb would only release thousands of spores, hungry for new hosts.

Rosa hums, and then says, “No. I’m going to take care of them myself. Their seeds will not work on me.”

And then Signless, predictably, asking: “So, why are we here, if we can’t help?”

It seems inappropriate to see her smiling, enigmatic and almost coy, but Dolorosa’s expression is relaxed and fond when she closes the distance between herself and her ward, sliding one of the bags off her shoulder as she dips down to place a kiss against his forehead. She presses the strap into one of his palms and says, “You will be helping. The land needs some help getting back on its feet.”

A moment passes, and then Psii says, slowly, “We’re gardening. You brought uth here to plant flowerth.”

“And shrubs,” Dolorosa adds airily. “There are bulbs, seeds, and a few sprouts inside the pack. Take care not to crush them.” Signless nods mutely, seeming a bit dazed, and opens the bag to investigate the contents. “Start here and continue east around the border of the city,” Dolorosa instructs. “The citizens will take care of the closer ground; we’re just getting started here. “Di?” Disciple perks up, meeting Dolorosa’s glance. “You know how to identify invasive plant species. Before setting down the new growth, first clear the ground of anything that will keep them from thriving. Be wary of infected roots. They will not be able to harm you at such a distance from the central cluster, but mind that you rip them out and leave them to burn in the sun.”

Signless closes the pack, wanders a few paces to survey the ravaged earth. “How long will we be out here?”

“I’ll be gone until morning,” she answers. “That should give you plenty of time to plant what I’ve given you.”

“Why aren’t the villagerth out here helping uth?”

Rosa clucks her tongue. “It’s too dangerous for them, yet. They’ll do their part, when we are finished doing ours. Now: no more dawdling. I’ve told you all you need to know.”

Carefully, Signless unloads the water jugs and the bag of plants, leaving them beside a half-bare shrub as he wanders out, inspecting the ground for any unwelcome flora. “Don’t misplace those,” Dolorosa says with a soft smile. “Otherwise you’re walking back to get new ones.”

“Yes _mom_ ,” Signless says, mouth twisting. She ruffles his curls when she passes him and he squashes a smile, but badly.

They work hard, digging and planting, then moving to another plot and digging more, planting more. Signless doesn’t seem to want to talk, which, although rare, is respected by the other two. Their only conversation is muttered exchanges about tools, weeds, asking for a hand here or there, a suggestion to relocate. Psiionic figures that, despite Rosa’s assurances, it doesn’t stop any of them from worrying.

The sky lightens and Signless gets antsy again, fussing around and being annoyingly particular about seed spacing until Di finally sits him on a rock and tells him to take a break. They run out of water for the new seeds, but continue working to cut away the toxic plants from the surrounding areas.

Dolorosa’s silhouette breaks the flat line of the horizon exactly when she said it would, but that doesn’t stop the heavy sigh of relief that escapes all three of them. By the time she reaches their most recent site Signless is up and participating again, tearing old, dead roots out of the ground with renewed fervor.

“You’ve done good work,” she praises, smiling at them even as she keeps her distance. Neither Signless nor Disciple go to hug her, even though the desire to is visible in their faces. “I’m going back to the city,” she says, leaving out the part where she purifies herself of any remaining contagions in the searing sunlight. “You should set up the tent now; it will be day soon. I’ll return tomorrow with more supplies and we will finish the task together.”

The tent is low to the ground and small, just enough for the three of them to cram into. They have to crawl inside and stay on their elbows, lest their horns bump into the canvas ceiling. It was much easier fitting into this thing when Di was smaller—as the youngest, her sub-adult growth spurt took her from a spry twig of a juvenile troll to the muscular powerhouse she is today, standing half a head over Signless without including horns (not that it’s hard). Dolorosa failed to see the problem when Psii complained that they’d outgrown the thing, using their closeness against them to suggest they shouldn’t have a problem sharing the tight space. She’s the one who actually keeps their money, so the tent remained small, shallow, and stuffed with half naked full grown trolls.

Di stripped off her dress and pants before even entering the tent, where she balled them up and used them for extra padding between her blanket and the hot sand. Signless waited until he was inside and _then_ flailed around on his back to remove his leggings, bumping both Psiionic and Disciple in the process.

The only decent individual left among them, Psiionic keeps his bodysuit zipped up to the neck, ignoring their laughter as he shoves his twiglike body into the furthest corner of the sloping ceiling.

It could be romantic, sleeping with them alone, surrounded by wilderness and silence, accompanied only by the wind. They’ve certainly all made out in this tent before (which Dolorosa surely knows, although they tried their hardest to keep quiet because she was _right outside_ ) and while it’s far too cramped for pailing it’s witnessed the shame of at least a couple desperate handjobs, from when they were young and only had each other and Signless wasn’t out enough for rent-hives to be an acceptable risk.

He’s tired, though, and cranky. Today was hard, and much of it was spent fretting, and he doesn’t have any ideas on what to do next in his and Di’s little game. The couple is giggling at his back, teasing and prodding at each other, and Psii doesn’t doubt that she’ll win their dumb competition. The whole thing is just. Really, really stupid. He doesn’t know why he agreed to it, honestly. It’s completely pointless to think he could _ever_ —

Nubs that barely deserve to be called horns jab into his back; an arm winds around his middle, squeezing around creaking ribs. “What’re you sulking about?” the intruder mumbles, warm breath puffing between Psii’s scapula.

Psiionic shivers. “You’ve got no right to athk me that quethtion,” he retorts, trying to shrug Signless off. The other troll stays stuck on like a barnacle, and things only get worse when Psii hears Disciple shuffling her way over to plaster herself across both of them, making the space more impossibly jam packed than he ever thought possible. In other circumstances she probably would have climbed on top of them, but any attempt to do so in their current situation would probably uproot the whole tent. He’s glad she sticks to reaching around Signless to make Psii squirm by tickling his grubscars.

“Don’t be such a grump,” Di says, her voice a rolling purr.

“Go back to making out,” he grumbles.

“Not without you,” she croons, long since used to his self deprecating fits. They never let him exclude himself for long, so he isn’t entirely sure why he still bothers to try.

It’s just nice, maybe, to have them drag him back in.

Fingertips brush the back of his larger set of horns, and the breath against his spine moves to the back of his neck, warm and, wet, and more than breath: lips kissing his skin gingerly and a tongue sliding up to lick at his earlobe.

Psiionic gently, but firmly, rolls over and pushes Signless away. “I’m kinda tired, SL,” he says, not missing Di’s questioning look from over Signless’s shoulder. She’s probably cursing him for killing both of their chances, but Psii just shrugs one shoulder, not caring enough to bother. Technically, it wouldn’t count anyway since Signless has no choice but to pay attention to them right now. But really, he’s just not in the mood to pail today.

“It’s okay,” Signless says easily, removing his hands from Psii’s person. “Do you want us to give you some space?” he asks after a short pause.

“Nah,” Psii says, easing into the rumpled blanket and focusing on using psi to blow the small coating of sand off the places where his body is going to be. “It’th not like there’th much thpace in here anyway.”

“We’d make it work,” he offers one final time, but Psiionic shuts him up by inching forward and wrapping a skinny arm around Signless’ hips, dragging him close again to press against Psii’s chest.

“I thaid it wath fine.”

The ‘okay’ is muffled in the material of Psii’s bodysuit, but he’s mostly paying attention to Di’s smile as she cozies up to Signless’ bare back, curling into a ball of unruly hair and firm muscle. Psii lets himself relax, adjusting around Signless until he’s comfortable: a knee jammed between his thighs and Signless’ head resting on his arm. Di purrs contentedly beside them, already half asleep. Despite being the tired one, Psii thinks he’s the final one to be awake, quietly baking as the reinforced tent canvas fails to entirely repel the heat. At least it’s dark.

… at least he has them.

At least that fucking infogrub isn’t buzzing him halfway to insanity.

What was that about it being dark? Psii hisses, trying to burrow his face into Signless’ sleep-mussed curls in an attempt to block out the sudden intense spike of light. Something must have happened to the tent; it’s not supposed to let light in. If it was an emergency he would hear Di snarling by now, so he figures someone forgot to fasten the flap tight enough and an animal or the wind displaced it. Urgh. His internal clock is all screwy, because he feels like he’s been asleep for quite a while but it’s obviously still light outside, and he should get the tent closed before the sun makes plans to cook them, so he feels around with psi, eyes still clamped shut, seeking out the fastenings.

He finds wrinkled canvas and the outline of a slim hand, and his eyes fly open.

“My, my,” Dolorosa says, a laugh in her voice. Her pale skin glows brighter than any infogrub ever could. “Look at this den of helpless, sleepy grubs I’ve stumbled upon. One would think I worked them too hard; how impossibly cruel of me.”

Di, wild beast that she is, is fully awake in seconds. “Rosa!” she exclaims, half squeal, half roar, and jostles her way through the tangle of limbs so she can throw herself into the older woman’s arms. Disciple is not what anyone would call light, but Rosa catches her like she weighs no more than a newborn kit.

“Good evening,” she says, smoothing thick, snarled hair out of the oliveblood’s eyes.

Signless groans and tries to smother himself in Psiionic’s bony chest. He lacks Di’s impressive rumblespheres, so the attempt is largely unsuccessful. Psii loses his shield—that is, Signless’ hair—and spits some mumbled curses before dragging Di’s abandoned blanket (and dress, and pants) close enough to hide under.

Smooth fingers close around his ankle and yank.

He ends up halfway out of the tent, covered in sand and hissing like a threatened scavenger beetle. Dolorosa easily avoids his uncoordinated kicks, stepping back out of range to join Disciple in laughing at his misfortune. It’s cool and dark outside, the space diffusing Rosa’s brightness enough so that it’s not painful when he sits up and glares at her. “Gracious, you two,” she says, addressing both Psiionic and the lump still curled up alone in the tent, “We’ve been here hardly a week and you’ve already gone soft. Get up—you’re acting older than me.”

“You don’t even age,” Psiionic complains, rubbing sand from his eyes.

“A negligible fact,” Rosa tuts, joining him as she shakes sand and twigs from her skirt. She no longer looks ready to take on an army by herself, instead wrapped in layers of airy fabric, so thin he can see her collarbones and kneecaps. It’d be easier to hate her for waking him up if she wasn’t so divinely beautiful.

Psii begins the struggle to his feet, and is aided by Disciple shoving past him so she can retrieve both Signless and her clothing. “Pleathe don’t tell me we’re doing more gardening,” he says when Rosa offers him a hand.

She pulls him up easily. “Take a look.”

Just behind her rests several more packs and water vessels, along with an entire flat covered in saplings. Psii wrinkles his nose. “How did you get all thith here by yourthelf?”

Rosa smiles, waving a hand dismissively. “It’s frankly amazing what one can do when they aren’t preoccupied with herding little ones.”

“They are a handful, aren’t they,” sneers Psii, glancing back at the open tent, from which there emits the sound of loud bickering.

He’d be more proud of catching Rosa nearly choking on a laugh if it was less apparent that she was laughing at him instead of with him. “Don’t,” she says, mirth in her eyes. “As if you aren’t less than a sweep older than him, and didn’t cause me at least half as much trouble.”

“Only half?”

“You did your best,” Rosa grants, “but Signless achieved mastery in all fields of troublemaking long before you entered the picture. Speaking of…” The person of the hour stumbles out of the tent already dressed, looking like a day-old beached capricorn carcass. Di slithers out after him, wearing pants but not her dress, and holds him still so she can tie back his hair, chiding him through her quiet snickers. “Finally joining the living realm, dear?” Dolorosa asks, making her way over to enfold her bleary-eyed charge in her arms. He clings to her, muttering ineffectual half-complaints that do a poor job of hiding his relief at seeing her again.

Disciple leaves them be as she saunters her way over to Psii, draping herself over his back. It doesn’t work with him quite as well as it does with Signless, but she tries anyway. “Sleep well?” she asks, purring.

“No,” he lies.

“Good,” she chirps, sliding off of him and scampering over to start digging through the new supplies. “Because today, we’re back on schedule!”

“Are we now.”

“Yes,” Di says firmly, pulling out a trowel and some twine. “Last night was an acceptable loss, but once we get back to the city we’ll lose him again. I’m not ready to see this mission fail!”

Psiionic snorts. “Okay. Whatever.” He pauses, inspecting the supplies: short one trowel, one ball of twine, but having gained a rumpled ball of green fabric. “Are you going to put your drethh on?” he asks, fearing he already knows the answer. Di throws him a wink over her shoulder and attacks the nearest root cluster she can find.

They put him to work using psi to locate the toxic roots under the sand and rip up as much as he can without disturbing anything they want to keep. It works for the broader areas, but he can’t really predict the specific movements of random underground foliage, so Di tackles areas closer to more established growth. He doesn’t see how her yanking is any more precise, but he _does_ see how Signless’ gaze lingers when she settles her weight in her heels and rips thick, gnarled ropes from the sandy earth, so he doesn’t say anything (that is, unless Rosa and Signless are out of earshot).

It doesn’t take too long to clear the majority of the mess from the land, which leaves them with the rest of the night to plant. Signless and Disciple’s flirting becomes moderately unbearable, mostly because Psii hasn’t thought of anything useful yet and even with _his_ shirt off he would pale in comparison to Di’s… everything.

So he works mostly in silence, doing what is suggested to him and trying his best to ignore Signless and Di trying to grab each others’ asses without Rosa noticing.

Halfway through being finicky about tree placement, Rosa leaves to get more water; not quite two hours later she returns with the promised goods, and also food. Tired of chewing on dry rations all day, Psii doesn’t complain when Di breaks off to make a fire, leaving him and Signless to finish introducing the last of their plantlife to the ground. Psii estimates they’ve covered at least four miles of excavation and rebuilding, which is great for the community, but he’s about ready to be done with this particular sidequest.

Signless carefully wets the ground around a slivery blue trunk, barely thicker than three of Psii’s fingers together. He pats the ground down and smiles absently at nothing. “Having fun?” Psiionic asks.

His friend turns to him, blinking like he wasn’t paying attention (not surprising). He chuckles a little. “It’s certainly different. Almost like being home again, except.”

“Except there’th only one nearby cluthter of undead and not fifty.”

Laughing, Signless shrugs. “Mother was good at keeping them away.”

Psii grimaces. “It was conthithtently traumatithing. I don’t know why I thtayed.”

Signless pushes him in the shoulder. “Why would you be scared? I think you’d make a charming daywalker.”

“In the thame way you’d be charming if the only thounds you could make were incoherent groanth, maybe.”

“I’d still find a way to call you out on your nonsense.” He snorts, but Psii doesn’t really have a comeback for that, so he lets it simmer, rushing a bit to get the last few seeds in the sandy earth. “In a hurry, Psii?” Signless asks, sitting back on his heels.

“To get out of here, yeth.”

Signless huffs. He turns his face to look up at the sky, humming thoughtfully to himself. “It’s not so bad out here.”

“Better than being in the city, though?”

It must have been the right question, or maybe the wrong one, because Signless goes silent for a couple minutes, reverting to repetitive, fussy patting at the ground like he does whenever he’s thinking about something he’s not quite ready to verbalize. “There’s still a lot of things for me to do there. A lot of options,” he says, finally.

“You were pretty pithhed about having to leave,” Psii notes.

He shrugs. “I.” The fingers of one hand curl into the sand, and then relax. “This is still doing good for the city.”

Psiionic gives up on working entirely, stretching his back and leaning back to flop in the cool sand (after making sure there was nothing behind him he could crush, anyway). “Yeth, and when you get back that’ll give you even more credibility when you go on about your all incluthive love hoofbeatht-shit.”

“It’s just hard,” he admits at last, waving a hand in the air. “I want to give everyone what they need, but I can’t. There’s so many people who are hurting, so many who need attention, and I… I have to _rate_ people, in my head, of who needs it most. I shouldn’t have to _do_ that, and here I am, seeking out the most desperate, the most isolated, and then those most capable of communicating the message to those who I can’t personally reach. There’s an entire cluster of people who just want to know, and I can’t give them an equal share of my attention even if that’s what they deserve.”

“I mean,” Psii begins, then hesitates. “No one is entitled to, uh, you.”

“It’s not about entitlement,” Signless says. “It’s about everyone deserving a better life, and not having the time to personally ensure they get it.”

“You’re jutht one troll, SL.”

Signless takes a deep breath, and then stands up. “You’re technically right, but not entirely.”

Psii cocks an eyebrow at him. “How tho?”

“I've got you guys," Signless says, smiling at him. "With nerds as big as you, can I really be limited to the achievements of just one person?"

Staring at him, Psii says, "Woooow. That was lame." He regrets it a moment later when Signless drops down and rubs a previously unnoticed fistful of sand in Psii's hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let this chapter be known as the part of the fic where there was almost a zombie fighting scene, but nah.


	3. let's be at peace

They descend like a storm.

Dolorosa's correspondence with the city's group of healers and mystics was not shared with Lapirria's general public, the meetings shrouded in as much secrecy as the forbidden herbs they used in their remedies, but when she sends Signless to them with a cutting of the central root from the eradicated daywalker cluster, the word seems to spread. It travels through the city like a growing fire, and in the week following his return, the crowds grow to throngs, and admirers grow to followers. Disciple rides on the tattered end of his cloak, pen sharp and fingers smudged with ink. She writes devotedly, for Signless has moved past cautious introduction to his ideals. He speaks passionately of all he considers true, and his voice carries loud through the streets.

Having successfully pinpointed the heart of the community and passed their test, Rosa is with them more, regal horns high above the crowd as she keeps guard over her charge and his mate.

And Psii?

He has his own business to take care of.

With the female trolls glued to either of Signless' hips, his role as the surly bodyguard is less necessary. He'd eagerly dare anyone to try and cut their way through Disciple and Dolorosa both and come out as anything more than a hunk of meat even their lusus wouldn't recognize. He spends three full nights combing through the marketplace, and the two following locked alone in the rent-hive while everyone else is out.

He tries to look casual when he creeps up around the bulk of the buzzing audience, flocked in a dense pack around the pier where Signless will soon be talking. Hundreds of trolls litter the beach, with more spread out into the water: some in boats, some lining the piers on either side of the one where he and Di sit, welcoming everyone close enough to be seen. Lurking in the shadows under the docks, and hiding among rocks, there can be spotted the shadows of horns and flaring fins of the seafolk brave enough to join the mass. He floats an inch above the surface of the water, gliding smoothly across the way until he settles serenely next to Dolorosa in the little dinghy.

She raises her eyebrows at him. “Joining us at last, Psiionic?”

Psii shrugs. “What can I thay? Too long without my aural channelth being invaded by hith inane prattle and I start to lothe focuth.” He fiddles with something in his pack, looking so suspiciously innocent that not even the most gullible wiggler would be stupid enough to believe him. Rosa tugs on the upper tip of his ear, just above the split. He's sensitive right where the furrow's deepest, which she found out when he was seven and had to be held down for baths because he never learned to tolerate them growing up enslaved in the mines. She would scrub his dirty ears with a wet cloth and if he didn't sit still he'd have to spend an extra hour helping her with the mending. Two, if he cursed or sparked.

A manicured nail traces down the outer edge of one point, hooking in where the two points meet and then stroking out again, cresting the second tip. Psii's vertebral column goes straight and stiff as he tries not to twitch. His hands freeze in place. “What are you up to, sly one?”

Clearing his throat, he shakes her hand off with a flick of his ear. “I could athk you the thame thing. You don't think one meathely tip explainth an entire week'th worth of abthenthe, right?”

“Of course not,” Rosa says primly. “Making nice with Lapirria's underground society wouldn't have taken that large a piece of my time. It took _much_ longer to pick through the histories of Signless’ would-be friends.”

Ah, yes. Psii isn’t entirely sure how much Signless knows about the obsessive background checks. The more they let him off on his own, the more thorough the investigation is. Di was furious when she found out that both Psiionic and Dolorosa had been taking the matter into their own fronds for quite some time (Rosa longer than Psii, he assumes), but as the minutes in which they were apart grew more numerous, she reluctantly took to her own research, aiding the overarching cause.

Signless trusts easily. It’s one of the things that makes him an excellent teacher. They try not to hinder that, while watching like predators from afar.

It’s a fine reason, but still not the whole truth. “Of courthe,” Psii agrees easily, withdrawing something small and wired from his pouch. “Though I think, jutht maybe, if that’th all you were up to, you’d at leatht have told me.” Dolorosa’s charmingly rustic word-of-mouth gleaning has always been useful, as much as Di’s eavesdropping, but Psii’s got his bony fingers primed for sticking in every technological hole there is, which makes infohunting much quicker. Dolorosa gives him a side-eye, and he knows he’s right. “What elthe might have kept you away, I wonder.”

“Signless is grown now,” she says, tone clipped. “He doesn’t need his lusus around all the time.”

“You and me both know that troll ith clingier than the young of a mammalian pocketbeatht.”

“Which does not preclude him from having private moments,” Dolorosa returns, a bit shrilly.

Psii thinks about it, then snickers. “You’re jutht afraid of catching him over a pail, aren’t you.” He fiddles with the gadget in his hands, laughing to himself as he perches it on the edge of his aural shell, reaching out to hug his temple.

“I’ll have you know,” Dolorosa says, her tone suggesting that she’s mentally rifling through different ways to flip him into the water without getting her gown wet, but Psii shushes her.

Normally interrupting her merits even more extreme punishment, but Psiionic has a good excuse. “He’th about to thtart,” he rasps, and his eyes glow as his psionics flicker to life.

“What are you doing?” Rosa whispers, still frowning at him.

“ _Shhh._ ”

Di is curled cozily against against one of the pillars, book spread across her knees, pen poised. Signless has raised his hands up toward the sky, signaling for attention. Psii expects people to notice, but he’s not fully ready for the hush that blows through the whole beach, a wave of voices descending into silence, until all that can be heard is the gentle lapping of the water and a crowd’s shared anticipatory breath. Psiionic is not a sentimental person, so he ignores the shiver that runs through his bones (and, in part, whatever is going on emotionally as well) and turns on the device.

The piece hovering at the corner of his eye blinks on a small red light, signaling the start of the recording.

Rosa watches him the whole time, sneaking glances that he can see out of the corner of his eye, but Psii keeps his face toward Signless, catching every twitch, every gesture, every twisting expression. He catches the patience in his face when listening to questions, the sorrow when he recounts the grim reality of their people, the intensity in his hope for better. Then, when Signless walks to the base of the pier and clasps the hand of a tall troll with a face twisted in gnarled scars, and she surveys him, and then nods, her hands trembling in his grasp and legs becoming weak; and the entire crowd bursts into a raucous, rapturous cheer; and even the seadwellers come out of their hidden shadows and splash water droplets so high they sparkle with the stars above; and his mother presses her hands to her chest and pretends to not notice the tears forming in her eyes, then does Psiionic terminate the stream.

“Okay,” Psii says, focusing his attention on the small recording device instead of on the way Rosa is dabbing at her cheeks, “Now we have to hurry.”

Rosa blinks at him, brows furrowing around her reddened eyes. “Hurry for what? Psii?” Psii grins and slides his arm around her waist, pulling her close to his chest as he surrounds both of their bodies in psi and lifts them right out of the dinghy. Rosa goes white with alarm, fingers clamping around his shoulder as they start to float over the water’s surface. She is durable and stubborn enough that she’d rather run than ever be carried by him, and he’s usually going after Di or Signless anyway, and so it’s rare that Dolorosa’s feet ever leave the ground, which is just fine with her. Between her sweeps spent in the brooding caverns, deep in the earth, and her love of gardening, it is fair to say Rosa has quite a pointed connection with the ground.

Which is probably why Psiionic takes such muted joy in seeing her toes clench in her slippers, gown blowing in the breeze as he carries them to shore. He gets a weird look from a seadweller, which he subsequently ignores as he ghosts to the nearest mostly-abandoned pier and sets Rosa down on the deep purple surface, landing a moment later. She flashes like a lightning bug, white face flushed with jade. “Could we not have waited to row to shore.”

“Doeth paddling a piddly little boat in the middle of theadweller infethted waters, only to have to navigate through a thick crowd of thtrange trollth going in the opposite direction thound like hurrying to you? C’mon,” Psii says, eyes flickering with amusement as he takes her hand and pulls, taking off down the beach.

She’s actually faster than him by miles, so Dolorosa yanks herself free and bolts forth without his help, until he has to fly to keep up with her. The streets are empty enough that they don’t get too many weird looks, rocketing through the city like their glutes are on fire. They make it to the rent-hive in no time, and Psii doesn’t even bother trying to conceal his delighted grin at having roped Rosa into his mischief. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asks, crossing her arms and standing in a corner as he walks over to the desk and pulls open one of the drawers.

“You’ll thee.” Psii lights up like a firework, psionics flickering and wrapping around several technological pieces he’s stashed away. They fit together in rapid succession, guided by his mind, until at last he rests, surveying his work. He manually adjusts a few dials on the device, then steps back, reaching into his pack.

Rosa’s voice is hushed. “What is that?”

“A tranthmitter,” Psiionic says, and grins with all his large, crooked fangs, and removes the memory chip from the video recorder. It feeds into the transmitter and a light starts blinking, and Dolorosa is quick to figure it out.

“You recorded his speech.”

“In about two minuthe and twenty-one thecondth, a broadcatht of it will hit every devithe capable of picking up a thignal in the thity.”

Rosa wanders closer to him, inspecting the machine with thinly veiled distrust. “Is that wise?”

“It’th jutht within the thity,” he says. “If thomeone wanted to hurt him they would have done it by now, and it’th not like thith is going to be their firtht time hearing about him. Word’th been all over for two weekth.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t worry tho much,” Psiionic says, and hits the broadcast button.

Nothing happens for a while. Rosa starts to look impressed, but around 48 seconds, something starts to beep. She blinks, and reaches for a pocket in her dress. Her communicator is making noise, and Psii leers. She throws him a look but flips open the screen anyway, greeted by an image of Signless with his hands in the air. Dolorosa folds her curled fingers over her mouth and narrows her eyes at the device. “I’ve thet it up to loop for three hourth,” he says. “That should give everyone time to thee it and record it for themthelves.” He pauses. “Why are you frowning?”

Dolorosa takes her hand away from her mouth. “What even is this?” she asks, turning the communicator so he can see the screen.

hot redblood 2iit2 on beach to dii2cu22 hemoequaliity and what happen2 next wiill have you in tear2 #uniity #peace #rebelliion #yolo

“Oh,” says Psii blithely, not withering under Rosa's stare in the least. “That was jutht to give them inthentive to watch it. Even the betht propaganda ith nothing without a good headline.” She doesn't seem impressed by the explanation, but clicks the communicator closed and tucks it away regardless, not bothering to argue with him further.

“We should go find him, so he isn't shocked by some stranger when he finds out about your...”

“Brillianthe,” he fills in, interlocking his fingers so he can stretch them over his head. “And that'th a good idea. You have fun.” Rosa raises her eyebrows. “I haven't thlept in two days,” he explains, pushing his headpiece back from its place around his horns. “Now that thith ith taken care of, I need to nap until I'm utheful again.”

“Sleep for the rest of the sweep,” Rosa advises, and then with a wave of her fingers and a half-hidden smile, she's gone.

He's not actually that tired. Psii can easily go a week without sleep, if his companions allow it (they don't) and he did lay down for a few hours in the day so Di and Signless wouldn't know anything was up. Well. Di, anyway. Since their return, Signless has spent as many days in their pile as he's spent out of it, and even on the nights where he was around, he probably wouldn't pay too much attention. Along that same vein, despite his efforts at being sneaky Di knows _something_ is up, but she's humouring him by not prying. He'll take what he can get.

The real reason for not accompanying Rosa is strategy. So close to the sermon, Signless is going to be swamped with follow-up discussions. Things won’t simmer down until later, in which there will be, by Psiionic’s calculations, a brief window in which Signless could choose to take up one of the many invitations he’ll receive throughout the night, or retire back to the rent-hive.

It is then when Psii plans to strike.

He sleeps a little longer than planned, because spending all his time with these losers is making him soft, but Psiionic doesn’t fret. He has time. He does… precisely nothing, as he sleeps in his single article of clothing anyway, and walks out of the block.

Then he walks back in. They’re all used to messing around in situations where thorough hygiene is not a possibility, and he’s far from the prissiest in their group, but maybe he should clean his fangs. Just because.

There. Okay.

Once he finally makes it out of the hivestem, Psiionic encounters another set of problems. That is, it is a lot more difficult finding Signless than he anticipated. He runs psionics through the ground, filtering through crowds, trying to get a feel for bare feet and warm blood; he listens aggravatedly for Signless’ gentle voice, full and low, sometimes a touch raspy, capable of filling a whole stage if he tries. The cityfolk are _talking_ about him, discussing the sermon, flocking in different sized clusters of excitement, but neither Signless, nor Disciple, nor Dolorosa, are involved in any of them.

He’s halfway convinced that they’ve just gone off and left him (they never would, but he’s frustrated enough that it seems plausible, if only by virtue of his life sucking) when, after floating himself to the top of one of the beachside rock formations, he manages to spot three bodies tucked in a corner of the beach, some distance away from the docks. The distance is far but he recognizes their silhouettes, and so begins making his irritable way to meet them.

They’ve walked closer to the docks by the time he reaches them. Di and Signless are holding hands, their voices low. Rosa is a pace behind them, seeming caught up in her thoughts.

“ _There_ you athholes are,” he grumbles, ambling up to them. “I looked everywhere.”

“We were talking,” Signless says, blinking at him. “The marketplace was too crowded.”

“I wonder why,” Psii says.

Rosa steps in line with the other two, head tilted curiously. “Why didn’t you just call me?”

Good question. “I left my communicator at the rent-hive,” he says, lip curling. “I didn’t expect a game of hide-and-theek.”

“We weren’t _hiding_ from you,” Signless laughs, walking up to throw an arm around Psiionic’s neck. It’s a stretch, but he drags Psi down to his level anyway. “Stop being such a grouch.”

“Make me.”

Signless looks like he might be about to, but a sudden burst of beeping emanates from Rosa’s dress. “That thing’s been going off all evening,” Signless notes. “What secret meetings are you planning this time?”

Psii raises his eyebrows. “You didn’t tell him?” he asks Rosa.

Both Di and Signless turn to her, expression questioning. Rosa sniffs. “Don’t turn this around on me,” she says. “I thought you might like to tell him yourself.”

Like meowbeasts following a pendulum with their eyes, Di and Signless turn back to Psiionic with their curious looks.

This. This was not what he had planned. At all.

Tense and unsure, Psii starts to consider how easily he could knock them all out and spend the rest of his life on the run, when Dolorosa opens her communicator to turn off the notifications, and Signless’ voice floats out of the tinny speakers. There’s a pause as the volume slides down into silence, and then Signless says, “Was that me?”

“Yes,” Rosa answers, “It was.”

“Someone recorded my talk?” Signless guesses, looking a bit weirded out.

“ _Someone_ ,” Disciple says pointedly, eyes on Psiionic.

Signless pulls his arm off Psii’s neck, shifting to look at him better. “You…?”

Oh, hell. Psii gesticulates broadly, nearly knocking Signless in the face. Anxious sparks flash around his eyes, the points of his teeth. “You were whining _tho much_ about not being able to reach everyone, so I jutht thought I’d fix that for you! Eth- _cuthe_ me for trying to help.” he spits out, claws flexing. His shoulders aren’t quite hunched yet, but he’s ready to turn the Defensive Bullshit up to eleven if challenged.

Disciple and Dolorosa share amused looks, just outside Psii’s line of vision, but Signless stares at him. Two, three seconds, and just when Psii is ready to tie himself in psychic knots from the stress, Signless bops him in the chest with his knuckles. “You’re a fucking nerd,” he says, smiling. Rosa makes a less-than-pleased sound at the curse, but it’s lost when Signless presses up on his toes to place a scratchy kiss on Psii’s jaw (because he can’t reach up much further unless Psii bends down). “So is that what you’ve been up to?” he asks, staying at Psii’s side when they start to walk again.

Psii tosses a quick look behind them at the girls. Di is hanging back, holding Rosa’s arm. She winks at him, and bites her lip.

“More or lethh,” he says, shrugging. “Lapirria is shit for modern technology.”

Now that it’s over, he’s kind of shocked that it actually worked. Differently than he planned, but Signless is _here_ , engaging, smiling at him and brushing his side as they walk, and Di seems keen to distract Rosa even if that means she’ll lose the game. He didn’t really think about how to proceed past getting Signless’ attention, but damn it he’ll figure something out. Something less boring than ‘hey, wanna come back to the rent-hive and let me suck your bulge?’

“Excuse me,” says a voice from the docks. “I was hopin’ I’d find you here.”

The tone isn’t aggressive, but the tell-tale twang of a seadweller accent sends tension shooting through the group. “May I— oh!” Surprise threads through Signless’ voice when he sees the newcomer; he takes a step back and bumps into Psii.

Psii, who wishes he didn’t recognize the guy, too.

“I hope I’m not interruptin’ somethin’,” says the royal violetblood, dripping from the tips of his smooth horns to the knobs of his bare ankles. Droplets leak from the tail of his long braid, which has a few more inches on it than it did the last time they saw him.

That is, since the time Signless went to him hoping to negotiate a better future for the city and ended up negotiating over the rim of a pail.

“No, you’re— quite alright,” Signless says hurriedly, eyes running down from his sleek features to his brightly coloured, loosely draped shirt, to the way his pants fit his legs like a second skin, and then back up.

The seadweller’s fins flare. “I didn’t mean to cause you any surprise,” he explains, “I just received this transmission of you speaking in the city, and—”

Oh, fuck.

Fuck no.

No, this cannot be happening.

“—was wondering if you’d consider joinin’ me for the rest of the evenin’. I’d be interested in hearin’ your thoughts on the city’s progress.”

Although Psiionic had been surprised not to see the seadweller anywhere, he hadn’t been _missing_ him. Turns out he just hadn’t _known_ Signless was in town, until receiving notice of a _recording broadcasting his presence_. If he could drown himself, he would.

“Oh, well. I, that. I would.” Signless throws a few quick looks at Psii and the girls, who moved to flock on his other side.

The seadweller doesn’t miss the message. “Sorry, that was rude a’ me,” he says, lifting up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Let’s try again. It’s good to be seein’ you again; could you introduce me to your company?”

 _No_ , thinks Psii, cruelly. _Move along_. Signless, however, reaches his usual charismatic calmness, and with a small smile he says, “Of course,” and launches into introductions. His hand settles on Psii’s shoulder. “You’ve already met Psiionic, my closest friend.” The seadweller blinks, then nods; it could be because Psiionic could be better identified as a slave class gutterblood, good only for menial labour and piloting the ships the seadweller’s people use to bring terror to other species’ homes. It could be because of the way Signless uses language much more intimately than the average troll, speaking fondly of acquaintances by employing positive words in ways they weren’t quite designed to be used. Trolls do not usually indicate their level of closeness with an individual unless they’re displaying a quadrantmate.

It’s not unusual for trolls to be taken aback by Signless’ casual subversion of cultural norms, but Psii hates the seadweller for it anyway. Signless doesn’t seem to notice, or care. “This,” he indicates Disciple with a wave of his hand, “is my matesprit.”

“You can call me Di,” she offers, teeth displayed by her full smile.

The seadweller pauses again, but ultimately smiles and nods to her, as well. “A pleasure.”

“And this is,” Signless begins, hesitating for a moment himself, “my lusus.” He places his palm gently on Rosa’s arm, beaming at her through the obvious nerves. She looks placidly at the unfamiliar troll.

Rocking back on his heels, the seadweller draws a long breath. He looks at Signless, who shrugs, still smiling, and then chuckles. He takes a step toward Dolorosa, hand extended. Everyone goes rigid and wary, but all he says is, “An honour to be makin’ your acquaintance, ma’am.” Dolorosa obligingly, though maybe with a touch of reluctance, places her fingertips over his. The seadweller dips his upper body in a quick bow, and releases her hand before he’s straightened all the way. He surveys the rag-tag, blood-diverse group, how their arms brush as they squeeze in together subconsciously, ready to defend.

Signless still has a trusting half-smile on his dark mouth, watching the seadweller back with an even stare. “Signless,” the prince says finally, brushing drying wisps of hair behind his regal, jewel-strung fin, “You’re full a’ many surprises, and I’m glad for the opportunity to learn about ‘em. This place was a shithive ‘afore you rolled through, and to express my gratitude at your givin’ a damn, I’d like to invite you and your friends to take a meal with me.” He barely even stumbles over the use of ‘friends.’ “My hive ain’t too far from here,” he adds.

Lips quirked, Signless asks, “Is it above water?”

Damn it.

* * *

Psiionic makes a concerted effort not to learn the seadweller’s name. It’s extra work to block it out every time Signless says it, which is annoyingly often, but he perseveres in interest of the greater good.

His land hive, it turns out, is a pretty sizable tower settled amongst several rock shelves just past the beach proper. The position, he explains, lets him keep an eye on the ships coming in and out of port, plus… “My brethren still sometimes try an’ cause trouble with the landdwellers,” he explains to Signless, who is following along interestedly. They’re eating on a massive balcony that overlooks the water, framed by swirls of coral railing. “Some a’ them don’t get why the city is important.” He chuckles, waving his glass. “They don’t realize that many a’ their ‘modern amenities’ were designed by the landfolk and modified for us down there, and cities like Lapirria exist ta connect our cultures so as we don’t evolve into _completely_ different species an’ such.”

“It’s good that someone with your influence can see that,” Di comments, tearing at the meat on her nutrition plateau. The seadweller offered utensils, but Disciple has thusfar declined to employ them. Psii stabs a root vegetable with his tined eating implement and rolls his eyes. Rebel or not, she’s still kind of a suck-up to higher bloods.

“I was never happy with what started goin’ on when the seafolk decided the landdweller city was gettin’ too powerful an’ cocky. It just took a little motivatin’ for me to figure what to do about it.” He doffs his glass at Signless, and Psii tries not to think about how some of that ‘motivation’ involved Signless finding unconventional uses for his mouth. “Distance between our people is all well an’ good until you look at offworld history an’ see how dividing a people can cripple an empire, so I try keepin’ nice terms with the trolls livin’ ashore. Also, sometimes I get sick a’ eatin’ fish.”

Di clears her throat and Signless laughs politely at the joke, and no one comments that ‘joining together to conquer other races’ is not exactly Signless’ endgame. Psiionic doesn’t interject himself, mostly because he would rather chew his own leg off than converse with this guy, but also because Signless has got his own back when it comes to finding the best ways to persuade people to his point of view.

The worst part is probably that despite some glaring biases that seem so thoughtlessly ingrained in the upper castes that it’s almost permissible by sheer expectedness, he isn’t even that terrible. He’s polite with Dolorosa, friendly with Psiionic (despite the latter’s open hostility), and pays special attention to Disciple through the conversation. It’s not hard to wager he’s still attracted to Signless, but he fails to be utterly disgusting about it, which frustrates Psii on some deep, intrinsic level. Intellectually he knows Signless probably would not have slept with a violet in the first place if he wasn’t a pretty stunning example of not-garbage, in contrast with the rest of his caste, but being faced with a seadweller doing his best to be _completely tolerable_ is inexplicably irritating.

“Where have you four been stayin’?”

“Oh,” says Signless around a mouthful of food. He covers his mouth and swallows before finishing. “A rent-hive in the city. The landtroll gave us a good rate.”

The seadweller makes a face. “All you’ve done for this city and they’re makin’ you sleep in some glubbin’ rented pile?”

“It’s not that we didn’t get offers,” Signless clarifies, hurrying to defend the honour of the townspeople. “We’re just going to be here for a while and didn’t want to impose on anyone. It’s easier this way.”

“I have an even easier solution,” the violetblood says. “You an’ your friends will stay here; ain’t like I don’t got plenty of extra blocks you could put up in.” Dolorosa voices a polite refusal, which works until the end of the meal, at which time the seadweller ushers Signless off toward a guest block, leaving the others with no choice but to follow.

Psii is preparing, in his head, a mouthful of vehement rejection toward the prospect of sleeping in this bulgesore’s hive, but the words die on his tongue when the seadweller pushes open the hiveportal and Psii’s ocular bulbs widen at the sight of an actual goddamn recuperacoon sitting by the far wall. While not a particularly easy person to win over, Psiionic knows from a precious few nights spent in the slime that nothing else quite takes the pain of sleeping away. He does better with bodies next to him, but for Signless’ visions, Psii has his nightmares and migraines. He’s the only person who really craves the experience in their group, though. Signless doesn’t like how the sopor affects his visions, and Di is a neurotically light sleeper, and Rosa… rarely sleeps, and only at very odd hours.

He would feel wretched inconveniencing the three of them just so he could indulge some frivolous personal comforts, so Psii doesn’t mention it much. Or ever. It’s not like he had access to sopor in the mines, so he’s used to going without it.

“Really, it’s fine,” someone is saying. “It’s very kind but I don’t know if my friends are comfortable—”

“Didn’t your luthuth ever tell you not to thpeak for otherth?” Psii cuts in with a pointed look at Rosa. The resulting ‘what?’ is echoed by three different voices—the only one silent is Dolorosa herself, who merely glowers at Psiionic like she wishes he was still a grub that she could spank. “We’re already here, and I’m thick of hearing you argue.”

Signless blinks. “Well, if you’re okay with it.”

Psii stretches. “More than. Thith way we don’t have to rush to get back to the rent-hive before dawn. You can thocialize. Have him take you on a tour or thomething.”

The seadweller actually seems legitimately excited about the idea of towing them around, which backfires spectacularly when Psiionic realizes he’s not being allowed to opt out. He swings in and out of bad feelings and good feelings several times as the prince leads them around his impossibly lavish hive, explaining different art pieces and historical texts he has lying around. He seems to be a big history enthusiast, which Signless likes. Di asks several questions about the art, which the seadweller answers at length while Dolorosa looks longingly at the exit.

Psii knows something’s up when he spies Rosa turning the volume on her communicator back up while Signless and Di are distracted leaning over a seadweller-made necklace crafted from polished volcanic rock. They move into another block, launch into another lengthy discussion of art history, and Dolorosa sends a longing look at the communicator in her hand.

Clearing his throat, Psii slides over and tries to mask his eyes lighting up as psi threads through the little wires in the device and triggers the soundbox. It beeps.

“Oh goodness,” says Rosa, tone carefully neutral as she lifts the communicator up to her face. Psii tries his best not to snerk. “This might be important. Excuse me.”

For about five seconds Signless looks like he wants to follow her, but Di points out a mural along the frame of a large, segmented window, and so he resists very little when the seadweller draws him in for an explanation. Psii is kept in good humour by Rosa’s escape long enough to realize that he helped her get away but is, himself, still trapped. That puts a damper on things, until Di’s ears twitch and she peers out the window at a lightening sky. “Rosa isn’t back yet,” she says. “I’m going to go check on her.”

Damn. Why didn’t he think of that? “I’ll go with you,” Psii says quickly. Again, Signless looks ready to protest, but Psii condescendingly paps him on the side of the face. “Don’t worry, we’ll manage to thurvive without your protection.” Signless rumbles indignantly, but before they can spat it out Di swoops in and grabs his face, kissing him hard between the eyes.

“We’ll be back soon!” she chirrups, and then grabs Psii by the arm, towing him along with her.

They don’t find her on their own, though Psii thinks they would have with a little more time. Instead, they’re approached by a female troll with close-cropped hair and uneven horns. Her eyes are sharp. “Her ladyship is just outside the south entrance of the castle,” the troll, some kind of blue, informs them. It’s kind of weird being spoken to with respect by a blueblood, even if she’s obviously a servant. The hives of royalty tend to skew the hemospectrum some: having higher-ranking servants is a status symbol, but it’d be socially disastrous for one’s staff to enact superiority over their master’s guests, even if they ranked below them. It’s not the first time they’ve encountered this idiosyncrasy, but it hasn’t stopped feeling _strange_. “The sun is rising, so be quick.” She walks away without another word.

Di huffs, exchanges looks with Psii, who shrugs. “Highbloodth,” he says, exasperated, and then lets her lead him to the southernmost part of the massive hive, where Dolorosa is waiting as they were told. “What have _you_ been up to?” Psii asks, sneering.

She turns away from her inspection of the uneven rock formations to level him with a calm stare. “He will be safe here for the night,” she says, not mincing words. It never fails to be awe-inspiring how Dolorosa commands such respect that she can turn an entire staff of highbloods into her personal reconnaissance team, but Psii would never admit to feeling that way. Instead, he just grunts in acknowledgement. “I, however, cannot stay under this roof,” Rosa continues, pressing fingers to her temple. She sends them a piercing look, skin paling and eyes glowing bright. “Watch after him. Do not let anything happen.”

Di scoffs, then slides under Psiionic’s arm to wrap herself around Rosa’s waist. “Like I would.” Rosa takes a minute to stroke Di atop the head before gently breaking away; she locks eyes with both of them and then is gone, a whisper in the growing light. They shuffle back inside before the sun comes up and makes short work of them.

They wander back to where they broke off from Signless and the seadweller, but a quick jaunt around the area provides no results. “Maybe we should go back to the respite block?” Di suggests, and Psii finds it a reasonable guess, so he nods and they set off. Their steps are quicker, less ambling. Rosa was satisfied by what she learned of the seadweller from the servants, but they still aren’t accustomed to leaving one of their own alone with a highblood.

Together they make short work of finding the guest block, but the sound of low voices gives Psii pause. He hooks two fingers in the back of Di’s dress, stopping her before she bursts out to greet them. Her face is confused, but she makes no noise when he lifts a finger to his lips, then sets it on his aural shell, telling her to listen.

“—somethin’ to ask you, before I…”

“Yes?”

“Your matesprit, you… she…”

“Oh. We’re not— I mean, we are! I love her, but we’re not—”

Di claps a hand over her mouth and Psii has to do likewise to muffle what would have been a snort. They look at each other with pained, watery eyes, desperate to hold back frantic laughter.

“Exclusive?” guesses the seadweller, and Di has to bury her face between her hands, fisted in Psii’s bodysuit, to repress her giggles.

“Yes, we. It’s complicated?” Complicated indeed, to explain quadrant-smearing affection and a casual attitude toward multiplicity in the same quadrants. More complicated still to explain _Psii’s_ place, between, beside, and around them.

“So I can still…”

“ _Yeah_. Um. Yes, if you want to, you could…”

They’re inches away from each other when Psiionic and Disciple burst from around the corner, overcome by riotous cackling. Psii hangs back, sneering in sadistic delight as Di flies to her mate’s side, grabbing his cheeks and mussing his hair as she crows with amusement. “You are _so cute_ ,” she squeals, pitching her voice just over Signless’ panicked squawking as he struggles to get away.

She seizes him around the waist and squeezes hard, lifting him an inch off the ground and making him gasp for air. “You’re so awful,” he wheezes out. Di sets him back down, pupils still blown wide in predatory glee.

Psii has his hands on his knees as he tries not to double from the force of his laughter. “You’re jutht pithhed you got caught,” he says, face still crumpled in a mocking grin.

“Shut _up_ ,” whines Signless, and when Psii catches him shooting a worried look at his would-be suitor, Psii starts laughing even harder. It doesn’t help that the seadweller is actually hiding his own chuckles behind his hand.

“I s’pose I can’t be upset,” he says, earrings clanging together as he shakes his head. “There could be worse interruptions.”

“You _bet_ there could be,” Di says, puffing up and moving in toward him. He’s rather short for a seadweller, maybe only an inch above Di, but with her thick hair she looks about level with him, and her body is twice as wide. “If I hear _any_ news of you aggravating my beloved in any quadrant—”

“Come along, then, an’ keep an eye on him for yourself.”

The hall goes silent. Di blinks. “What?”

The seadweller surveys the three of them, in their patched outfits and ragged cloaks, and says, “I have plenty of room in my respiteblock.”

“You had better,” Psii says, breaking the web of surprised confusion. “Di’th hair taketh up at leatht half a pailing couch on itth own.” It startles snorts out of his friends.

Smiling wide, the seadweller drapes an arm over Di’s shoulder. He doesn’t lose the arm, which says good things about how well he’s endeared himself to her. Psii is _almost_ impressed. “I’ll push two together,” he says, magnanimously, chuckling when Di shamelessly snaps her teeth at his flared fin. She doesn’t pull away from him, though, instead grappling for Signless’ hand.

When the three of them start to move, Psii hangs back. It takes them a few seconds longer than usual to notice.

“Psii?” Signless asks. Di is peering curiously around the seadwellers arm.

“You two go ahead,” he says, waving his fingers dismissively. “I’m too old for thith kind of excitement.”

Di groans. “You’re barely older than me,” Signless chides, rolling his eyes.

“Not that he doesn’t try his best to act ten sweeps above his age,” Disciple adds.

“Whatever,” says Psii, rolling his eyes right back. “I’m going to thleep, though.”

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Di complains. “You _never_ sleep this much!”

“I’m catching up,” he says with a shrug, walking over to the hiveportal. “You kidth have fun.”

They continue calling for him and needling until he closes the door, but Psii privately thinks the seadweller didn’t look too disappointed that he turned down the invitation. He pauses just inside the block, taking a breath.

They’ll have fun.

Psii walks over to the recuperacoon. It’s standard issue, shaped like an ablution trap, and empty. There’s a small cupboard next to it, in which Psii finds a box of sopor concentrate. There’s a spigot attached to the back of the ‘coon, which he turns with psi so the basin starts filling up with fresh water. He flips the box to look at the dosage instructions.

He knows from experience that he can handle highblood-strength sopor. The knowledge wasn’t gained on purpose, but rather from the first time he filled a ‘coon on his own. He didn’t bother reading: just dumped about half the box in and crashed. Their host would later comment that he used enough concentrate to knock out a subjuggulator, but Psii’s fucked up mutant brain felt completely fine.

This isn’t some backwater lowblood town, though, and Psii doesn’t want to risk it, so he measures out the lowest dose of concentrate—recommended for wigglers and rustbloods—and dumps it into the slowly filling slime pod.

And he waits.

The curtains over the geometric window panels are thick, letting no light in. It’s good, because Di isn’t here to fill the cracks with her dress.

He tries to be glad that he doesn’t have to share the ‘coon, but it’s not like he would anyway. Di and Signless don’t like sleeping in sopor. He tries to be glad for the alone time, but he’s been alone a lot, lately. He tries to be glad he doesn’t have to suck seadweller bulge, and he _is_ glad for that, but…

Psiionic is an objective person. He is objective about his crooked teeth, and bad hygiene, and scarred shins, and knobby elbows. He is objective about his angular face and mutant abnormalities, about the way his thoracic bone cage presses out under scarred and mottled grey skin, no matter how adamantly they try to feed him. He is objective about his terrible personality, about how his sudden migraine onslaughts make him occasionally useless, and how that typically happens right when it’d be really good to have a functional, powerful psionic around.

He is objective about being a disgusting person, even if his friends like him anyway.

All that considered, he doesn’t think he needs some way-too-nice-for-his-type royal seeing him naked, and he _especially_ doesn’t need to sit around comparing himself to sleek, toned muscle and polished, regal features.

He also doesn’t need to think about his closest companions with _someone else_ between them, but he does anyway.

The recuperacoon fills a bit over capacity. Psii sighs as he drains enough that it won’t overflow when he shoves his awkward, gangly bone puzzle into the tub.

It helps, having contact with the drug, even if it makes him nervous to strip naked before getting in. His overactive thinkpan starts to unwind, knots uncoiling as he sinks to the bottom of the basin, taking a deep breath. Sopor floods into his lungs, chokes him for half a second before his body adjusts to the fluid; air becomes a much less appealing option when the soporific floods his bloodstream, mellowing him out almost instantly.

Psii curls up in a ball on the floor of the ‘coon, breathing slow and even. He barely even thinks of the fact that he’s alone.

* * *

He doesn’t hear the hiveportal open, or the padding of footsteps, or the rustling of clothing. He doesn’t stir when they click their tongue and reach into the cabinet to pull out some absorbent terrycloth so it’s ready to dry them when they exit the ‘coon. He doesn’t notice a naked body climbing up the side of the basin, and in fact stays quite unconscious until a bare foot dips into the surface of the slime and his eyes fly open.

The image is blurred through the slime, but when Psii sees strong arms and full curves, he doesn’t panic. The soothing drugs flooding his system probably have something to do with that. He blinks, tired and curious, as Di tosses her thick mane of hair and slips all the way into the ‘coon.

Psii opens his mouth in mute question when Di glides forward, snuggling into his chest. She’s soft-hard, squishy around the edges of solid muscle, pliant in his arms even if he feels like he’s the one being held. Her hair is a solid mat at the back of her head, but he isn’t sure he can laugh under the slime. He tries for words instead. “Why are you…?” They come out warped and hollow, but it doesn’t hurt to talk. He would worry that Di wouldn’t understand except he knows she can read lips.

Her hand curves to his cheek, and she kisses the corner of his eye. The sound is too quiet to make its way through the sopor, but he feels her lips buzz when she purrs against his skin, a quiet, lazy, _shoooosh_.

She pillows in his lap, stroking his face and chest and neck until he’s slipping down, succumbing to a content sleep.


	4. our hearts collide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is explicit.

“There’s somethin’ I have to take care of back home,” the seadweller says, when they all meet the next night for breakfast. Signless’ neck and shoulders are covered in marks and he avoids prolonged eye contact, a distant smile curving his mouth. (Di and Psii won’t stop leering, which doesn’t help.) “I can’t say if I’ll be back before you take your leave,” he explains further.

Signless snaps out of his obvious ‘food-and-sex’ daze, blinking up at him. “You’ve only been ashore for a day.”

The seadweller shrugs, and sighs, and offers him a rueful smile. “My kind ain’t exactly the most cohesive bunch.”

“You can thay that again,” Psii agrees. Signless shoots him a look that says ‘be nice, damn it,’ but Psii grins lazily and absentmindedly tugs at his collar, and Signless jerks his eyes away again, lips twitching as his fingers lift to settle on a particularly angry looking bite mark.

“I do invite you to stay in my hive as long as you need,” the seadweller adds, extending his look to both Di and Psii, sitting together on the other side of the table. “And,” he says, webbed fingers brushing over Signless’ own, “I sincerely hope I’ll be seein’ you again, some day.”

The hiveportal leading to the balcony bursts open, and Dolorosa walks in. Both Signless and the seadweller jump as if they’ve been burned, and neglect to touch each other again for the rest of the evening.

They do end up staying in the castle, if only because it’s close to the beach and the city square, which Signless has determined are the best venues for his talks, which begin to accrue even more attention over the following nights. Di and Signless hardly have time to themselves anymore, and Di seems to have forgotten all about their little competition in her flurry of ‘get more ink, get more paper, sew paper into book, record more speeches,’ rinse and repeat.

For a while Psiionic follows them around, listens, and helps corral the crowd during and after sermons.

He gets bored. Quickly.

His job has always been security, inasmuch as that all of them are security, but Rosa and Di have other jobs, too. Psii is the one with convenient eyesparks that can shock the fuck out of dissenters and assailants, which Lapirria is failing to provide. He shouldn’t be complaining, but he feels a little more than useless here.

They don’t need him. (Theydon’tneedhimtheydon’tneedhimtheydon’t—) So he’s left looking for something to do.

He pours more sopor into the ‘coon and sleeps alone because he’s too prideful to either join the two of them in the pile or ask one of them to suck it up and sleep with him (the ‘coon is big, but not enough so to fit _three_ of them).

Lapirria's residents are friendly, recognizing him as Signless' companion. He hates socializing but he does it anyway, talking candidly with the merchants and anyone who pings him as suitably unorthodox. It takes longer than he likes before he discovers something about the city that interests him, too many nights spent idling around feeling neglected, but when he latches into a particular informational tidbit and hunts it down to the source, he ends up feeling mysteriously gleeful.

Yeah. This'll do.

“Where are we going?”

It’s late, and they should be getting back to the seadweller’s hive so they don’t get roasted in the sun, but Psii has daycapes in his pack and they’re used to the heat after so long living in and traveling the desert.

“You’ll thee.”

They should sleep, because they have _things_ to do tomorrow, things that Psiionic isn’t bothering to care about or pay attention to. They need a break, he’s decided. And he has not forgotten about Di’s and his competition.

“Psii,” says Signless, and he sounds tired, “I have a lot of things to do—”

“Alwayth,” Psii interrupts. “You _alwayth_ have thingth to do. Take a load off,” he suggests, shocking the backs of Signless’ bare heels to keep him walking behind Psii, who is leading them with the closest thing he can get to excitement while still being a huge grumpy buzzkill. Tonight no one will kill the buzz. The buzz will live on.

They continue to argue all the way to the venue, but Signless seems to relax and warm up to the idea of fun along the way—which is not to say he knows the exact type of fun they’re having. Psiionic was careful not to let on to the nature of this trip, no matter how hard they pried. As the gigantic coral spire marking the heart of the city looms ever closer he has to repress the urge to grin knowingly, because even where they're standing in front of it, his intentions are still a complete mystery.

“Why are we here,” Signless asks, sounding tired again.

The impressive looking spire is not quite as impressive as it appears when you find out it is basically a glorified paperwork factory slash status symbol. The highest third of it isn't even accessible to trolls—it's completely hollow, nothing but decorative filigree. The rest of the building is storage and legal paraphernalia; vendor permits, import logs, walls upon walls of file cabinets recording ancient information that doesn't matter enough to transfer to the developing rural computer systems, but which no one bothers to clear for destruction. It's only open a few hours every night, and is agonizingly slow, frustratingly busy.

“Didn't I tell you to trutht me?”

“No,” Signless says, but Di pulls on the hood of his cloak gently.

“Just go along with it,” she says, because of course she's figured some of it out. Psii rolls his eyes and she blows him a kiss.

He leads them to the right of the main entrance, around the edge of the spire, to a beat-down, half hidden door that says 'PERSONNEL ONLY.' He knocks. Usually at this point there'd be some sort of secret handshake or slam poem, a letter of recommendation, a demand for sexual favours—whatever. There isn't. The troll who opens the door nods her horns and beckons them inside. “Turn left, take the door on the right, go down,” she says.

Psii nods, and Signless quietly thanks her. He waits until they've turned the first corner before hissing a whisper, “Is this some kind of meeting?”

“No,” says Psii, and leers when Signless knocks him in the arm. “If you keep pethtering we can go back to the hive and then you'll never know,” he adds wickedly.

Signless' face darkens with a red flush, and he looks at Di, who is smiling, and then he huffs and walks ahead of them, grabbing the handle of the hiveportal and hauling it open. He's nearly knocked over onto his ass when a wall of sound slams bodily into him as the thick metal door leaves the jamb. Surprised, he lets go and reels back, allowing the heavy door to fall closed again.

Di snickers, but Psiionic holds it in. He smirks as he walks over beside Signless and wraps a coil of psi around the handle, hauling it open again and holding it for him. “After you,” he suggests, looking very much like a purrbeast over a caught squeakbeast.

Signless gives a dubious look down the stairwell and its pulsing rhythm, which reverberates up from the ground into their legs. “Come on, SL,” Psii says, “Don't tell me you've never been to a club before.” Secret parties were one of the only reprieves he and his fellow slaves got when he was younger. They crafted their own instruments and snuck out of their barracks, went down into the darkness of the very mines that they were forced to excavate, and they played, and they sang, and they danced. The next night was inevitably awful and exhausting after so little sleep, but the chance for relief was worth it. The chance to vocalize freely, the chance to touch without a highblood's rebuke, the chance for a moment not hating yourself—

He still remembers the way their hand-made rhythms bounced off the walls of the mines, echoing, growing. It was one such day when he finally threw off the shackles and escaped.

“Do I _look_ like I've been to a club.”

“It'th dark, and everyone knowth about your blood anyway,” Psii parries. It's a hard secret to keep when his eyes have changed, and when he won't stop whipping his cherry red bulge out for everyone who smiles at him the right way.

Di breaks up the argument by grabbing Signless' arm and giving it a tug. “You'll be fine. If you don't like it, we can leave.”

“Oh, thankth for reminding me,” Psiionic says. “Give me your cloak.”

Signless tugs it tight around his shoulders, frowning. “No.”

“It'll get thtepped on and probably ripped,” Psii says. “Altho, no one will be able to thee you if you're wearing it.”

“That's the point of wearing it.”

“Not here.”

“ _Psii_ ,” Signless complains, but Psii's already unhooking the cloak with his psionics, appreciating how Di winds her arms around Signless, pinning his arms so he can't struggle. She nuzzles his neck and whispers something Psii can't hear, and Signless goes loose. “Okay. Fine. Five minutes.” He takes Di's hand, gives Psii a haughty look (Psii pretends not to notice as he stuffs Signless' cloak into his pack alongside the daycapes), and steps off down the stairwell.

They stay much longer than five minutes.

There's real instruments in the hands of the trolls onstage, acoustic and electric. Instead of echoing caverns there's speakers strung up through the wide, empty would-be storage block, blasting amplified sounds out to where troll bodies take the place of file cabinets. They can't hear individual voices in here, no more than they can recognize faces of people they more than likely know from the city. It's an anonymous writhing cloud, a glittering mass of flashing lights and bucking horns. Signless stops at first, stepping backward into Psii's chest, but Di purrs in his ear and Psii rubs his knuckles between his scapulae and they edge him forward to the edge of the throng and encourage his body into motion.

Psii never really danced like some of the others. He moved with the music, but it was easier with another body against his. Mostly he used the time to find someone to make out with, rubbing and kissing on the floor, rocking idly to the beat. He takes advantage of this when Di draws a bit away to whirl around, barely lit on the edge of the floor, moving like a graceful predator practising forms. Psiionic presses himself against Signless' back, touching his bare chest over the hem of his leggings, coaxing light into his eyes until Di's curves glow with hints of blue-red as she spins. They watch, and she watches them watch, slit eyes piercing through the darkness as her lips purse in a smile, noting how Psii's palms slide their way down Signless' sides, curving to his thighs and drawing back up.

Signless rolls his hips backward into Psii's body, groan lost in the music's hungry maw, and drops his head to the side. Psii's teeth find flesh and he licks and sucks, distracted until a thick body slams into Signless' front and Di's mouth finds her mate's and she backs them further off the floor, until a wall appears, solid and unmoving against Psii's back, and Signless grinds into his front again and this time it's Psii groaning, nose buried in Signless' dark curls.

He doesn't think about winning, or losing, or competition, or triumph. He thinks of grey suede, prying claws, wet lips, trim hips and full spheres, two bodies hot-and-cool against his and the vibration of his suit being unzipped along the side. They touch his chest, lean up to suck yellow stains into his neck, scratch his hips. Psii gives back all he can in between the distracted flickering psi around his horns, teeth, the corners of his eyes. Di licks into his mouth and Signless buries his face in his shoulder and slides his hand down Psii's taut abdomen and into the cloth of his pants.

His bulges are out, which Signless doesn't seem to mind one iota. His fingers tangle in them eagerly, and it's only when Psii gasps against Di's swollen lips that she catches on to what's happening. She laughs against his skin and eagerly joins in.

Maybe they don't notice, when his bulges wrap around one wrist each and they both worm fingers inside him, filling him, stretching him, that they're fucking him in rhythm with the music. He clings to them, gasping, with the fingers of one hand fisted in the hair at Di's nape and his other hand squeezing one of Signless' glutes, drawing them even closer.

He wasn't joking when he told Di they weren't symmetrical, no matter how well they might fit together, no matter how beautiful they look kissing just under his chin while their fingers rock into him. Signless has the first two digits hooked inside, his wrist cuff rubbing Psii's hip and stained in genetic material, even if he tried to push it out of the way. Di's working the middle two, knuckles bent and pressing against the outer lips of his nook. It's uneven and stupidly perfect, two sets of two mashed together in the worst way, he hates asymmetry but lights up for them anyway, letting red and blue sparks blur purple as they race down Psiionic's hips to where Signless is pressed against his thigh.

Even with the background noise, he _hears_ the cry, feels Signless' rhythm stutter as he nosedives into Psii's bare chest, mouth open and sucking in desperate breath as he squirms against the muscle pushing against his apex. The psi courses around the lips of a bright red nook, dips inside just barely until Signless whimpers a plea and Psii fucks into him with his mind, sending the sparks deep and strong until his bulge uncoils inside his leggings, soft and squirming.

It doesn't escape Di's notice. She gets a hand on Psii's larger horn, tugs his head down and digs her teeth into his earlobe, pulling, laving over it with her tongue. “Me too,” she entreats, nibbling around the lower point; he shudders, gasps. Her fingers go harder, making up for Signless' uneven rocking.

“Give me a thec,” Psii breathes out, unsure if she can even hear him. He pulls Signless harder against his thigh, squeezing his ass, and braces himself. The psionic energy courses in an arc across his hips, tingling his crotch as it finds Di's fingers and runs up her arm, taking the long way through her body, igniting every nerve ending on its way to her nook. When it hits, she gasps into his ear, warm breath and gaping mouth and he twists to claim it, swallowing her ensuing moan.

They fight through the twitching of their fingers, toes, their shivering backs and hips, catching whines against his skin as they continue to fuck him with their hands. Di slips a third finger in and Psii doesn't even care that it's not four anymore because it was never even in the first place and now he's full to bursting, pressure against the rim of his nook, squeezing his bulges against his stomach and in between clumsy kisses and barely-audible endearments he rises on a peak he can't control and seizes up, spilling himself down their palms and soaking his suit.

“Fuck,” he spits, shaking through aftershocks as they thrust a final few times before withdrawing. His psionics still rumble in the back of his pan, but gentler, thanks to his distraction. “Fuck,” he repeats. “I wathn't thupposed to—” Di giggles.

Psii slowly pulls his energy away from them, and grabs them by the horns before they can complain, shoving their faces close enough that he barely has to turn to kiss one, then the other, then both of them as they angle their heads just right and he gets lost in dark lips and rough tongues. Di bites his bottom lip as he licks the corner of Signless' mouth and kissing as a trio becomes awkward and clumsy; they break into tired laughter and Psii doesn't remember to pull his bodysuit up from where it's hanging around his hips until they've already reached the top of the stairs.

“Thith ith dithguthting,” he complains, squirming his arms into the sleeves and zipping up the side.

“Thanks for catching it before either of us suffered the same fate,” Signless chuckles, wrapping around his back and gnawing at Psii's shoulder through the fabric.

Psii pushes him back against the closed hiveportal. “Don't make me change my mind,” he threatens, grinding back at Signless' crotch where his bulge isn't quite fully retreated yet. He gasps, and Di cackles, and decides that she's done waiting and pulls out the daycapes for the beginning of a very sticky run back to their lodgings.

They don't make it to the respiteblock. Signless pulls them into a room filled with alien armour fragments and pushes a pile of books to the other side of the table so he can sit his bare glutes on it, letting Psii fit his head between his spread legs while Di buries herself in his wet, stretched nook.

One of the servants does them the favour of closing the door behind them.

* * *

“What’s that smug expression for?”

Psii puffs up. “Becauthe I _won_.”

“No, you didn’t!”

He puffs further, this time flashing at the edges of his horns. “How do you figure? I wath the one who got into hith pantth firtht.”

“You got him in the mood, yes,” Di allows, “But I was there too.”

“Tho?”

“ _So_ , it doesn’t _count_.”

“Bullshit!”

“Not bullshit. The goal was to get to him _before the other one did_. If we do it at the same time, that doesn’t count.”

“You’re a cheater,” Psii sneers.

“Whatever,” Di says, grinning. “The point is: this game is _so totally_ still afoot.”

* * *

As the end of their stay draws closer, Signless gets... distant. Less days spent in their pile, less nights with either of them on his heels. His educational talks peter off and Di doesn't need to record him bonding with his intellectual followers, so she breaks away to keep Psiionic company.

Disciple purports to understand. Signless doesn't love them less, he just feels desperate to connect as strongly as possible with this place, this rare oasis where he's accepted and loved. They can't stay, because there's other cities being crushed by their own hatred, other places that need to hear his message. It's not like he can hide here and pretend the rest of their people's problems don't exist. He isn't selfish; he's the one determined to spread his thoughts in the first place, but.

Psii pretends not to sympathize just so they have something to argue about.

“For thomeone who inthithted that we were thtill competing over SL's bulge, you don't theem to have any more ideath on how to get at it,” he comments from his place sprawled on the floor while Di sits curled up in the pile, book in hand, painting sealant over pages of scrawl.

“Oh, hush.”

“And good luck getting any now, I mean. He'th got hith cartilage nub buried tho far up the townthpeople'th wathechuteth that I doubt he'll be interethted in uth until we're out of the thity again.” Di throws a pillow at him. Psii catches it with ropes of flashing blue-red, drops it a foot away from him. Di throws another, which he allows to hit. “Happy?” She grunts, so apparently not. “Yeah,” he fake agrees nastily, “I'd get thick of defending him, too.”

He pretends to be surprised when she pounces, like he didn't do it on purpose. “Shut up,” Di growls, though it comes out garbled because her teeth are digging into the meat of his shoulder.

“Ow,” Psii says, and when she doesn't let go, he shocks her. Di hisses, but backs off.

“Don't you have anything better to do?” she grumbles.

“...no,” answers Psii. “That'th kind of the point. You know, if you'd jutht admit that I won you'd be able to tell him that you want attention.”

“I am _not_ vying for his attention.”

“You tho are.”

“No more than you are.”

Psii thinks about it, inspecting his jagged claws lazily. “Nnnah, I got you to bother me; that'th more than enough.”

“Bother you.”

“Yeah, what elthe do I keep you around for?”

Di rips the pillow out from under his head and starts to beat him with it. “If I didn't—” thwap “—stick around of—” smack “—of, my own volition—” whack “—you would—” thwap “—you'd get _way too cocky_ and someone would rip out your lingual muscle.”

His claws sink into the tough material and he bares his teeth at her while they struggle around it. “So you're here to protect my lingual muscle, ith that it. Do you have any particular invethtment in that part of me orrrrr—”

She throws her weight onto the back of the pillow and lands on his face. Psii sputters. The pillow covers his horns, muffling his ability to sense where things are with his psionics, so he ends up very nearly kneeing Di in the crotch when he flails. She screams, just barely redirecting the blow to her inner thigh rather than her nook, and then knocks him in the abdomen punishingly.

“I'm telling SL on you,” Psii wheezes, arms wrapped around his stomach.

“He'll side against you,” Di warns. “A gathering of the most peaceful trolls on Alternia wouldn't convict me of any wrongdoing.”

“You're jutht jealous that I ate him out and not you,” he sneers, and then narrowly rolls to the side in time to avoid her claws.

She rebounds, slashing at him again. “Like I can't get that any time I want,” she says, boastful.

Psii snickers. “Ooh, Disciple, are you going to thit on my face, are you going to hold me down until I tonguefuck your nook and you drown me with your—” He gets tackled again, but not assaulted. Di pins his arms and growls in his face, a feral grin on her lips.

“I just might.”

“I _dare_ you.”

When she slams their faces together it's with more teeth than lips, tongue flicking out to push into his mouth, only to snap her teeth down when he returns the gesture, trying to bleed him. (Not too badly. Probably.) While her mouth is busy Di's scrambling to remove his bodysuit without ripping it, and Psii is deeply entertained by electifying the zipper every time she manages to grab it.

“I hate this thing,” she complains, digging her claws into his hips and growling as she bears down, grinding against him.

“If you dethtroy it, you're replathing it.”

Di thinks about it, then bares her teeth, reaching to tear at _her_ clothing. Psii obligingly helps her out of her pants only enough that he can dig his claws in and scratch up her hips once the fabric clears her broad thighs. She arches, sucking in breath, but regroups and finishes kicking the garment off in record time. “I don't need _you_ naked for this,” she rumbles, and Psii's mocking 'how kinky' is drowned out when she slams him back to the floor, sucking viciously at his neck.

They struggle a bit longer before she finally gets up to his face, bunching her skirt in her fists so she can see his eyes flash with anticipation when she lowers herself down to his waiting mouth. He hooks his hands around her legs accompanied by plenty of claw, pushing his tongue inside as far as it will go. It's no time at all before he feels her muscles contract and her bulge slide out. He'd make a half-cocked joke but that's not an option with her bearing down on him, hands fisted around his horns as she bucks against his mouth.

It's hard to see and hear with her body on top of him, which after a few moments of struggling to breathe while buried in nook gets irritating for Psii, who _likes_ seeing his partners' reactions. Charging up his psionics, he grips her whole thorax, wraps psi around her knees, and flips her off him, onto her back. Di kicks and spits as he descends between her legs again, lapping at her green-flushed lips, suckling at the base of her thick, thrashing bulge.

The sound of voices outside halts them. Di's eyes go wide and she peers between her knees, folded up beside her rumblespheres. Psii wipes a gloved hand over his stained mouth, then jerks his hand away, frowning at the fabric. He sits up, pulling his gloves off. “Thoundth like SL is back.” Indeed, his voice can be heard through the wall, unintelligible but unmistakable. Probably talking to one of the servants. “Tho much for figuring out what to do about thith attention problem. He’th going to fall athleep without kithhing you again.”

It was either the right thing to say or the wrong thing to say, Psii can't decide. He secretly suspects that despite Di's posturing about not being jealous ever, she is still sensitive to the feeling that Signless is _actually_ overlooking her. In any case, Di almost catches him in the cartilage nub with her foot. He explodes in a burst of sparks as he throws himself back in a clumsy dodge, and only escapes because the psi shocks its way up Di's leg.

“I don't see you coming up with anything,” Di growls, pouncing again.

Psii tucks up his legs and floats to the ceiling, flipping upside down to scowl at her. “Are you trying to _actually_ kill me?”

Di pouts, tucking her hands behind her back. “Of course not!”

“Hmmm,” Psii says, and lowers himself just enough to be in range, still hanging upside down. “I'm not thure I belie—”

It would have been a good call, because Di swipes, knocking him off balance. Psii takes off, dodging the edge of the 'coon, winding around a desk, and zooms into the adjacent ablution block. It's pretty easy to fly around in the block, because all the ceilings are elevated to accommodate for typical highblood height. Psii banks hard and tries to trip Di up near the ablution chamber but she catches the wall and springs off like an animal—not a surprise, to him. He whips back out the doorway but the second he took to see Di's would-be wipe-out proves to be detrimental to his escape. Di bounds up and uses the doorjamb as a springboard, launching herself into the air at him.

Psii twists in the air, holding his arms out defensively, but it doesn't help much when she bowls into him, taking him to the ground. She surges forward and Psii meets her, snarling right back as she bares her teeth in his face. Neither backs down; their horns lock, rattling loud in their chests. Psii pushes against her, trying to twist off the vulnerable position on his back. He can't rival her strength so he sends a charge through her limbs, weakening her muscles and making them twitch and shudder.

Beyond words, Di makes a threatening sound, warning him off, but Psii pushes forward anyway, and that's when he hears it.

“ _Guys?_ ”

His head snaps around. “SL? Shit—” He loses his ground and Di has him flattened out again in seconds, one hand going for his throat. Psii's eyes grow hot with psionic power and just as he's about to release it two arms wrap around Di's front.

“Shhhhh,” Signless soothes as he tries to pull her back off Psiionic. “Come on, Di, don't do this.”

Like a switch has been flipped, her entire demeanor changes. Di turns to give Signless a weird look, and Psii wouldn't be surprised to find his own expression mirroring it, nose wrinkled at their companion. “What are you doing?” Psii asks.

Signless gapes. His mouth opens, then closes. “Trying to stop you from killing each other?” he guesses. “You looked like you were flipping black but in a horrible way.”

Di blinks. “We were playing,” she says, pushing Signless with the back of her arm until he lets go. “Have you ever known me to actually hurt him?”

Rocking back to sit on his heels, Signless scratches behind one of his horns. “How was I supposed to know? You were really going at it.”

Psiionic and Disciple exchange looks, then shrug. “We were letting off thteam,” Psii says, dismissive.

“Steam? Over what?” They exchange looks again, guiltier this time. Di slinks closer to Signless, winding her arms around him and tucking her head against his neck. “Di?” Signless asks, rubbing at her back. “What's going on?”

“We were just bored,” Di says, raking her hand back through her hair.

“I don't think that's it,” Signless says.

Di stands up, but doesn't go anywhere. She shifts her weight and looks at the floor. “Good guethh,” says Psii, easing himself up to his feet so he can prod at Di's side, knuckling her in the grubscar. “I don't think thith game ith fun anymore,” he tells her.

She laughs. “You think?”

“Um,” says Signless, looking entirely lost. “What game?”

“Trying to get your attention,” Di says, still avoiding his eyes.

Signless processes for several seconds and then he's up in her face, cupping her cheeks in his palms. “Di... I. Do you feel like I've been neglecting you?” his voice is concerned.

“No!” she insists, grabbing his shoulders. “No, it's just— I mean. Maybe a little?”

“Yeth,” Psiionic interjects. Di throws him a dirty look.

Any developing spat is interrupted by Signless winding himself around Disciple approximately eighteen times, squeezing her close. “I'm so sorry,” he says. “I didn't notice. You seemed so busy with your own things, I never once got the impression that you were waiting for my acknowledgement. And you!” Signless doesn't release Disciple, but he looks at Psii with the same pitiful look. “Are you upset with me too?”

He makes a face, then shrugs. "Di wath around," he hedges.

Signless turns back to her, pained. "You had to take care of _Psii_ too," he says, "While you were hurting already!"

"It's not _that_ bad—"

They're so far down each others' throats that they don't notice Psii gathering the pillows from around the block where he and Di scattered them earlier. He carefully rebuilds the pile with his psi, then edges up behind the two of them to grab a shoulder each, then tows them back to the reconstructed pile. Far preferable to the rent-hive one, these pillows are firm and there's enough of them to make the pile high and wide enough to comfortably fit all three of them. Di and Signless go down at his behest, snuggling into the pillows.

Psii rolls his eyes.

“It started as a joke,” Di explains, looking over his shoulder at Psiionic. Psii looks back at her before inching forward, tentatively pressing himself against Signless' back. “We saw how busy you were and thought it'd be funny to see how easy it was to distract you.” She winces. “Only when you weren't doing actual work; it was just supposed to be funny.”

Signless shooshes her, stroking her face. “You don't have to explain your intentions to me. I know you wouldn't be deliberately harmful.” Psii snorts. “ _You_ , on the other hand...” Signless says over his shoulder.

“Completely maliciouth,” Psii announces with exaggerated hubris, and bites his earlobe.

They settle into silence for a while, all holding each other and ruminating on their individual thoughts. “I didn't want to stress you out,” Di speaks up, leaning closer into both of them. “I know you love it here, and I thought it would be unfair to be constantly demanding things from you when you were trying to focus on more important things.”

“Being with other people isn't more important than you,” Signless responds quietly.

“But you were _helping_ people.”

“And what good is that if I'm not helping the ones I love most?”

“I think we're overreacting,” Psiionic suggests, shifting to rest his chin on Signless' arm. “We didn't care about motht of it. Pail whoever you want, to be honetht. Neither of us cared. Jutht lately you got kind of. Dithtant.”

Signless nods weakly, then again with more confidence. “You're right. I did. I got... I wasn't even caught up in it, I'm just.” He sucks in a breath. “I don't want to leave.”

Di kisses his forehead. “I know, beloved.”

“I let myself get carried away because... Goodness. I'm not used to being wanted like this.” They swarm in on him from either side, Psiionic and Disciple crushing him in hugs. Nothing more is said on the subject as mutual understanding permeates the group of them. Signless kisses Di on the mouth, slow and careful, and then cranes his neck to kiss Psii too, leaning over his shoulder. He takes a breath, then stands up, taking a few steps away so he can get undressed.

He folds his cape, drapes it over the corner of the desk. He starts undoing the clasps down the line of his torso. “So...” Signless says very casually, glancing down at the two of them. “What exactly were you two doing this whole time? Even mom mentioned you acting strange.”

Psii and Di exchange looks for the umpteenth time, mentally revisiting every plot and joke and dumb seduction technique. They silently assess the potential of telling him the whole game was ultimately gearing to get into his pants without actually asking for it, and how they ended up spending more time in _each others'_ pants than interacting with anything below Signless' righteous leggings. They think of Signless' exasperated lectures on enthusiastic consent, and Di offers him a private grin, and Psiionic bursts into genuine laughter, which he tries to muffle by shoving his face between her spheres.

Signless raises his eyebrows, but Di smiles sweetly at him. “Don't worry about it,” she says, squeezing Psii closer. “The important part is that we took care of each other.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. Hope you enjoyed, MisterInkwell!


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